I'm still hoping for some sort of official word on this.

dear lord...this topic's been beaten, stomped on and pissed all over in the past

shut up already, no one here knows anything more than what we saw on E3. i honestly hope the PC references his marriage and his lovely wife and child over and over and over again throught the story just to piss you off more coz you're starting to get annoying.

Because they have a baby based on the looks of them both.

You should be able to figure this one out.

I agree....I find the story fascinating so far, and and am eager to play it. You're a man/woman out of time, you've just (by your perception) lost everything and almost as much of a relic as the shattered remains of the Old World that surround you. Your past is irrelevant...barring plot twists everyone you ever cared about is dead and long forgotten...your future is up to you. Sounds like fun, even though it will be incredibly sad and melancholy for a while until you can find a path forward. Kind of reminds me about Fable 2 and what happened to the Hero's sister.

Yup...people demanding that they have total control of their backstory should be careful what they ask for.....they might get it. Being able to play as being gay, or straight, or a M to F trans-sixual married to a Mr Fisto Protectron won't mean a lot if the game has a story as thin as, say, Destiny's. I want a story with some meat to it, unlike Skyrim, and so far it looks like we're going to get it. As far as Mass Effect....people who are upset about having to join the BoS in FO3 must have hated being forced to save Humanity and the rest of Galactic civilization from the Reapers. Even if you cop out at the end of ME3 and refuse to make a decision...dooming everything Shepard had fought for...the next civilization uses what Shepard learned to defeat the Reapers, omnly buying them another 50,000 years. And in DA:I the Inquisitor gets Duty imposed on them and they cannot escape it, only decide what ends they will seek to use their newfound power.

Remember GTA: San Andreas? It sold quite well, even though most gamers aren't black kids from the ghetto who tried to escape the gangster life but keep getting pulled back into it by old enemies, corrupt cops and amoral Federal Agents. I identified with him enough to leave one neighborhood of the Ballers intact so that they would know that Grove Street ruled the City before I finally came for them to finish our business. Good times. Hopefully Bethesda will stay the course and not nerf thier story to appease people who will never be appeased until all creativity is svcked out of their story lines lest it "trigger" someone.

You're comparing two different types of games. In Bioware games I expect a semi-set character. (But I'm still annoyed at how the first Mass Effect tries to force you into a relationship with either Kaidan or Ashely, depending on your character's gender; all my Shepards have been single Just Because.) In Bethesda games I expect more freedom. When I've finished the main quest and DLC in New Vegas, I'll download an alternate start mod and see if it's possible to play a character who is not the Courier. Being able to play many different characters is a strength of those games - I can replay them more often without getting bored, because every playthrough can be different. Also: It would have been easy to allow players not to be Dragonborn.

Which, in fact, I'm going to do. I own several games already that allow me to decide my character's sixual orientation or lack thereof; I don't need Fallout 4. There are plenty of games out there. There are, and will be, more RPGs with character creation. It's not like I won't have anything to do in front of my PC if I don't buy this particular game.

Some people want to play themselves, other people want to play someone else. I never play myself, and I don't mind playing a character with a different sixual orientation than my own - but I want the choice. (Same as I want to decide what my character looks like - I don't play games with set protagonists. If I want a set protagonist I can read a book.) I also want the choice to play a character who does not care about six and romance at all. Most of my characters don't.

Wow. I almost never bring up that PoV since people never seem to even bother considering it. So thank you internet stranger, for restoring a bit of my faith in humanity.

So? Instead of basing the baby on the parents' looks randomize him since he's adopted. Ta~da. Or if he's not adopted and he's the result of future genetic voodoo (since it still technically IS the future despite the cultural stagnation) have him be based on the parents looks anyway. Two dads wouldn't be hard since he's a little dude. Two moms might require some more chicanery, conceivably. Probably not much though. But! I don't really have a problem with being gay and in a married relationship pre-war. Like I've said before I think that makes sense. I'd like some options post-war to let my freak flag fly tho.

And I don't. We are at an impasse, sir.

If you want to mod it into your own game, that's fine. More power to you. But neither Bethesda nor any other company should forsake the story they are telling just to cater to an audience that doesn't feel represented by that story. Some stories involve teenager protagonists, some have married ones, and some have protagonists with the soul of a dragon. You can like some less than the others (I don't like F3's LW as much as I do, say, the Chosen One in F2) but we do play a certain role in these games, and not all of those roles cater to every single demographic. I like that they're giving us a family, if that family actually has a bearing on the story and our character's motivations.

You don't have to be attracted to someone to sleep with, or even marry them. For women, it's even easier to feign attraction than it is for men.

[citation needed]

Seems more like the kind of thing that'd vary depending on the individuals at play.

hahaha. How are they apple and oranges? One mechanic forces some people to not be able to play a character that is representative of themselves and another mechanic in bethesda's game forces a different set of people to not be able to represent themselves in their character creation. Hmmm seems the only apples and oranges variance is Rust means you can't be represented so it is BAD and "Stupid" but because bethesda's system does allow me to be represented it is okay and good.

I see no threat to my games by encouraging diversity. I made no attack on Bethesda, I just pointed out that so often gamers who are represented say 'svck it up' but when we can see a game that created a mechanic that didn't automaticaly let you play a character representative of yourself and BOOM the rage was on. Suddenly people who just assumed a game would be representative of them because they always were, couldn't play a what THEY wanted and it was making them angry. But their anger was justified in their minds but the disappointment or anger that other groups feel at so often not being able to be represented is pointless and a non-issue. Intresting. Very intresting.

I am curious how wanting diversity makes me a SJW you'll have to explain that one to me. Or is SJW just a lable you use to deflect my actual points without having to address them?

Easy solution, add a "switch spouse" option and a "gender" option. Get two more voice actors for their small parts. The baby can be still be generated based on the looks of both of them, being 2077 or whatever same six biological reproduction is likely possible as it almost is already. Could also be from a surrogate of your spouse's sibling/relative or the child doesn't even have to be procedurally generated from both parents, pretty easy. As for cultural values, they could leave it vague or they could actually write something about how accepted or unaccepted it is, how the relationship has to be a bit hidden or not, etc. Would enrich the world for everybody, not just LGBT people. Don't a lot of straight male gamers play as lisbians anyway? All in all wouldn't be that much work for the hundreds of thousands of dollars they will make from LGBT gamers.

If they've integrated the dead spouse into the later game (which I sort of doubt) it will be more work, but again, I think it is worth it for the amount of money they will receive from players who want it. I don't think all or even many LGBT gamers will not buy the game because of this but like many other minor features they will add: it will show realism (most importantly IMO), respect, inclusion, fan service, some small degree of revenue, etc. As well as make good on their promise that you create whatever character you want and that player freedom is their number 1 goal.

You come across as a SJW because you make a really big deal about identity politics and vocabulary.

Representation isn't nearly as big of a deal as you appearently think it is, otherwise games with non-straigh-twhite-male protagonists wouldn't sell at all. Comparing Rust and Fallout fails because Rust does not have a story as far as i am aware and therefore does not require anything of the player-character, and forcing players to be a random skin-colour that they can't change in a game that does not require has nothing to do with representation,otherwise it would only enforce the players real skin-colour to make it actually representative. Fallout has a set backstory that appearently requires the protagonist to be straight and everything not necessary for the story can be choosen at will. If it required the player to be something else we would have to live with this to.

But we don't know anything about the story,so complaining about it now is just petty whining. If the game releases and this whole being married thing turns out to be pointless you can complain as much as you want, i would complain about it too.

hahaha. How are they apple and oranges? One mechanic forces some people to not be able to play a character that is representative of themselves and another mechanic in bethesda's game forces a different set of people to not be able to represent themselves in their character creation. Hmmm seems the only apples and oranges variance is Rust means you can't be represented so it is BAD and "Stupid" but because bethesda's system does allow me to be represented it is okay and good.

I see no threat to my games by encouraging diversity. I made no attack on Bethesda, I just pointed out that so often gamers who are represented say 'svck it up' but when we can see a game that created a mechanic that didn't automaticaly let you play a character representative of yourself and BOOM the rage was on. Suddenly people who just assumed a game would be representative of them because they always were, couldn't play a what THEY wanted and it was making them angry. But their anger was justified in their minds but the disappointment or anger that other groups feel at so often not being able to be represented is pointless and a non-issue. Intresting. Very intresting.

I am curious how wanting diversity makes me a SJW you'll have to explain that one to me. Or is SJW just a lable you use to deflect my actual points without having to address them?