QSO Media

SPOILER: Most of them are sandbox farming games.

I have always loved life sim and sandbox-style games. In fact, I love them so much that I’ve even spent a good section of my career convincing people to let me write about them for money.

For me, it’s essentially just an excuse to play with dolls while looking like you’re doing Busy Work on your computer, or doing Hardcore Gaming on your console. And I love that for me.

While life simulators aren’t a recent trend by any stretch of the imagination – Conway’s Game of Life came out more than five decades ago – it’s certainly been a more recent phenomenon to actually be able to play as an LGBTQ+ character in these titles.

Although some games would allow us to be able to completely evade romance arcs or marriage mechanisms, making it easier to deftly evade any arcs of forced heterosexuality, others would require us to take a walk down straight lane for the progression of lore, or to be able to unlock achievements. It was pretty frustrating to say the least.

Unfortunately, our options can still be pretty limited. But these days, there are a couple of options out there – and the list seems to grow year-on-year. Let’s take a look at a number of recent titles that actually let you play as an LGBTQ+ character.

[29/01/2026 UPDATE: This article was originally written in 2022. It has now been updated to help it fit the QSO Media’s evolving style, to add Paralives, and to highlight EA’s upcoming company sale.]

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

I’ve always loved Harvest Moon, ever since I was just a young egg. Back in the day, I would obsessively play Harvest Moon: It’s A Wonderful Life while desperately trying to pursue Ceilia with moondrop flowers and fresh eggs.

Back then, I was mostly pissed off that I couldn’t play as a woman farmer. It wasn’t very girlboss of them to force me to be a boy. But, from a gender perspective… It probably did some things I couldn’t understand yet, spending hours on end playing as a cute little farm boy with my name.

Incidentally, they did eventually re-release the title with the option of playing as a girl, but – surprise surprise – I didn’t end up playing it. Maybe I wasn’t that mad after all.

For those who missed it, some drama happened around which company owns the modern Harvest Moon games, and now half of them are made under the title Story of Seasons. Around abouts the same time the split happened, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town – a revamp of the classic Harvest Moon game with a similar title – came out.

Anyway, I was fucking delighted when I picked up Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town last year. It marked the first Harvest Moon(ish) game that actually included the opportunity to be gay. This is the case regardless of which gender farmer you play as (young me would be pleased; you can play as a girl now), and regardless of which bachelor or bachelorette you choose to date. This includes the debatably genderless Kappa who wants only cucumbers.

You can also adopt a capybara as a pet. Pretty swish.

Stardew Valley

It would be absurd to write any kind of list about sandbox games, let alone a list of sandbox games which include LGBTQ+ options, without mentioning Stardew Valley up front. Who doesn’t just want to go and be gay in the great outdoors?

The charming RPG has gained massive notoriety since it first launched back in 2016. It sits somewhere between early 2D Harvest Moon titles and more free life simulators like The Sims, with totally open-ended gameplay and nigh infinite opportunities to customise your 16bit farmer’s little life and homestead.

Included in those endless options is the opportunity to woo and romance any bachelor or bachelorette you want, regardless of their – or your – gender. There are 12 regular bachelors and bachelorettes in total, each with their own unique backstory and preferences.

Plus, you can become roommates with a cryptid – pretty sure that’s a fundamental milestone in being gay. I don’t think you can actually call yourself gay if you wouldn’t at least choose to live with a cryptid; assuming you haven’t already done so.

TinyLife

Another indie game – with more cute pixel art graphics to boot – TinyLife is a much-anticipated life sim, with plenty options for your little pixel people to be LGBTQ+. The game technically isn’t out yet, but if you move fast you can play it whil it’s in early access on Itch.io or Steam.

The early demo of TinyLife really manages to capture the feeling of the original release of The Sims, but with the benefit of far cuter graphics and way more chances to be LGBTQ+. For starters, everyone automatically uses they/them pronouns, and your tinies can present themselves in any way they (or you) see fit.

Something particularly notable is the explicit inclusion of aromanticism and asexuality as traits in the game, meaning your tinies can be completely exempt from romancing other tinies (or they can experience an altered route for dating), as well as being able to totally avoid the game’s equivalent of getting the Big Horn: Feeling “Frisky”. This doesn’t just operate on an “opt in” basis, either – premade households in Maple Plains City also include asexual and aromantic tinies. Nice one.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

Continuing on the farmer theme that we’ve had going for a few entries on this list, let’s take a look at Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town. The successor to Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, Pioneers of Olive Town is a completely original new story in the series.

As always, Pioneers of Olive Town is crammed with cute little animals for you to take care of, exciting mines to explore, and a fantastic range of crops to cultivate – but, as a new addition, you can now customise your farm with cute little fences and enclosures.

An exciting premise for this title is the promise of over 200 new events, including some as the opportunity to “find love with someone special”. Of course, how special could it be if you couldn’t be gay?

You can woo, pursue, and marry any eligible bachelors or bachelorettes regardless of their – or your – gender. With all new candidates who haven’t featured in any previous titles, that’s a pretty exciting prospect.

Rune Factory 5

A sibling series to the Harvest Moon franchise, Rune Factory is essentially what happens if you make Final Fantasy into a farming sim.

As well as managing and running a whole ranch, Rune Factory games always give you the opportunity to explore the badlands surrounding the village. If you’re the kind of person who, like me, tends to enjoy life sims up until you completely lose track of what to do (much like how I navigate my real life), then Rune Factory is perfect. Once you’ve sown your turnips and brushed the cows, you can go dungeon crawling with a sword and shield.

Rune Factory 5 is no exception to the Final Farmtasy* vibe, but this is the first title where you can marry a character of the same gender as you as a part of the game’s romance mechanism. You can date any of the 12 marriage candidates you want to, with no limitations set by gender. Plus, you get a really cute little illustrated cutaway scene for your wedding ceremony. Fuck yeah.

*I nearly said “Farmer Fantasy”, but I’m fairly certain that game exists too, and is probably pretty gay, but I’d suspect it has a pretty different vibe to this one.

Paralives

Paralives is an upcoming life simulator set to release on May 26th, 2026. Although the game isn’t out just yet, meaning we don’t know just how gay it’s going to be, a number of different journalists and content creators have already been fighting the good fight to answer the question of the hour: Can you be queer in Paralives? Thankfully, it looks like the answer is overwhelmingly “yes”.

Per INTO, the anticipated life sim is going to be “refreshingly queer”, thanks to the inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community throughout the release’s previews and teasers. Meanwhile, YouTuber Tyco Curious shared a deep dive on everything we know so far about making trans Parafolk, and their place in the game’s ecosystem. Similarly, I also noticed that the character creator screen included non-binary gender options.

If Paralives is the future of life sims, then I can safely say that the future isn’t just bright – it’s looking pretty queer, too.

Dishonorable Mention

The Sims 4 (or, technically, just about any game in The Sims franchise)

I’ve played The Sims since its very first instalment. I bought The Sims 1 base game, along with a copy of the Makin’ Magic expansion pack, for about a fiver in the early 2000s from my local supermarket – and I have barely put down the franchise since. I suspect being about 10 years old and playing as a lesbian sim in The Sims 3 probably mentally unlocked some doors for me (you know how it is). An embarrassing number of hours (and cash) later, and we find ourselves on the most recent edition of the franchise: The Sims 4.

I’m hesitant to praise Maxis and EA too much, for an absolute litany of reasons. However, despite that, something nice is that it’s kind of always been possible to be some shade of gay in The Sims, ever since day one.

LGBTQ+ sims in The Sims 4 are awarded all of the same privileges as their cishet companions, from marriage and children and beyond. Over the past couple of years, they’ve introduced free patches to make the gender and pronoun systems on the game a little more inclusive, too.

It’s nice to be able to escape our very scary real world sometimes by playing in an equally scary, but at least gay and generally trans friendly, world made entirely out of glitchy graphics and wicked whims.

Update: Well, you can absolutely be gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, aromantic, or trans in The Sims 4, but it’s not quite the queer utopia it could be. EA is set be bought out by Silver Lake, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. That can’t possibly be good. So, The Sims has been relegated to the Dishonorable Mention slot.

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Toni Oisin H.C. is the Head of Audio at QSO Media. Read more of his writing here.

Big Gay Fund is a mutual aid collective that supports trans and non-binary people in the North East of England. Find out more about which campaigns they support here.

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