In what will undoubtedly be a controversial decision, video game developer Bioware announced that it will continue to forge ahead with its plans to introduce same-sex relationships to its game "Star Wars: The Old Republic."
Writing on the game's blog to start off the new year, the game's executive producer Jeff Hickman made the announcement along with a few other notes about the massively multiplayer role-playing game.
"First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game," he began. "I realize that we promised SGR [same gender relationships] to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character."
Hickman went on to add that the inclusion of these same gender relationships is going to take some more time.
"Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play," he said. "As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of ... I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future."
Bioware is no stranger to adding this kind of support to its titles. Its "Mass Effect" series has come under fire multiple times for allowing players to cultivate same-sex relationships in its games. Notably, when the developer announced its intentions to add gay/lesbian relationships to "Star Wars: Old Republic," both it and its parent company, Electronic Arts, came under heavy fire from anti-gay activists to reverse course. Activists claimed that EA was pressured into including this content by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) groups.
At the time, EA's VP of corporate communications, Jeff Brown, responded by saying that although the company did meet with LGBT groups, it was by no means pressured to include anything in its games.
In addition to signaling the eventual addition of same-sex relationships in "Star Wars: Old Republic," Hickman mentioned two other updates coming to the game this year. The next one will include a new player-vs-player area to accommodate multiplayer, while the spring season will see a brand new expansion featuring new levels, stories, and a new planet to explore.
