Content warning: this article contains discussions of eating disorders
When it comes to society, it’s been pretty easy to fall down the doomer rabbit hole of late. Video games are no exception. With the rise of generative AI being used to make art, music, and storylines in games, the increase in redundancies in studios, and the mirroring of societally exclusionist sentiments within some games, things seem a little bleak at the moment.
Any artwork that can stand in front of an audience and commit to inclusion is a tool for good in these times, which are being dominated by the anti-DEI narratives of the powerful. More than ever, it’s important that our escapism feels as though it belongs to us, the people, and many of us in the gaming community don’t fall into global majorities. I wanted to take a moment to recognize some of the games that have made a particular effort to reach out to marginalized players.
South of Midnight
This is a brilliantly made action-adventure game that looks stunning and is highly engaging – but most of all, its gameplay and lore mean something important. South of Midnight won the ‘Games for Impact’ award at the 2025 Game Awards, and in my mind, it was thoroughly deserved – for doing something that I’ve personally never seen done before.
The weaving (no pun intended) of South of Midnight’s settings, characters, and gameplay makes the whole thing into one giant canvas for the story it tells. The healing of generational trauma, the specifics of having a black family in the Deep South of the US, and Southern folklore – these are themes that aren’t explored in gaming, and the way in which they’re explored here is magical, with songs in boss fights echoing the classic auditory storytelling method of old folklore.
Hazel herself isn’t mere representation, an outlier in an otherwise unrelated video game – she’s an expression of culture, memory, legend, and, through all of that, just a girl trying to save her mother.
South of Midnight is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 next year and is available on Steam Deck now.
Date Everything
Date Everything is a funny and charming dating simulator that, while not tackling topics of too much weight, feels like it has a place on the list because of just how much heart there is in it. Of course, the concept of objects turning into a human-shaped little guy, gal, or other icon is a little silly, but the magic in Date Everything comes, as our own Tilly Lawton writes in our Date Everything review, when you suspend disbelief a little and take in the charm of the game’s writing, voice acting, and drawing.
What’s more is that the game normalizes gender identities and sexual orientations of many kinds and combinations. Date Everything’s commitment to trans and non-binary identities is genuinely unprecedented, as the game showcases trans people in all colors, shapes, and sizes with its ten non-binary characters, five of whom exclusively use they/them pronouns. In a time that currently feels so staunchly anti-trans, this is a huge win, even if Ben-Hwa is a little extra.
Date Everything limits the player and their interactions in exactly zero ways, with options to be mortal enemies, lovers, or just friends. You can date as many or as few of the objects as you’d like, and even multiple of them at the same time, like The Hanks, who are a group of five coathanger dudes that you can date simultaneously.
Date Everything is available on Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck.
Consume Me
Consume Me was nominated for the ‘Games for Impact’ award, and there’s a good reason why. In a time where mental health issues are simultaneously more visible and more neglected than ever before, Consume Me does a wonderful job of portraying the real impact of eating disorders in a young woman, prompting you to complete what feels like an endless number of checklists and silly tasks to feel like a person worthy of being in the world.
But more than that, it’s an insight into what it means to be growing up as a young woman and a daughter – you also have to grapple with snippy comments from your mother, a young relationship with a boy, and ever-present but crushing expectations from those around you, including the weighing scales.
Creator Jenny Jiao Hsia based much of Consume Me on her real experiences with body-image issues, and you can tell. Consume Me is such a wonderful piece of art for young women because it was made by someone who knows what female adolescence is really like, and that’s what makes it so deeply relatable.
Consume Me is available on Steam Deck.
Dispatch
Dispatch is one of the most popular entries on the list, and while I already declared it my Steam Deck Game of the Year, I want to talk about its commitment to displaying and taking care of its cast of rogue antiheroes, a theme that in itself is radical.
They’re starting to become more readily available, but black superheroes are still hard to come by, especially black women superheroes. Dispatch pulls no punches in its fleshing out of Coupe and Prism, the former of whom gets the option to have a villain arc, and the latter of whom is one of the most OP characters in the game. Prism is a ball of charisma, but the game doesn’t shy away from presenting her as the hard-working hero she is, and her copy ability makes her absolutely essential to the teams
The game makes sure that, whether you let go of Coupe or Sonar, Coupe is still important in the story’s development, especially given her relationship with Punch-Up, which is very sweet should you choose to keep her on the Z-Team. Ultimately, the fact that you can succeed in winning Sonar/Coupe back over emphasises another really important aspect of Dispatch: that no one, no matter what they might have done, is too far gone to save.
Dispatch is available on Steam Deck.
Project Sekai
Okay, so this one is technically cheating because it didn’t come out this year; however, as an ongoing game, I think it still counts. Project Sekai is primarily a rhythm game, making it an interesting candidate for this list. There’s a very good Mizuki-shaped reason why the game makes it in, and my fellow non-binary legend and Pocket Tactics writer Daz Skubich puts it best when writing about Project Sekai’s trans representation, “Mizuki’s story shows another side of the trans experience that people know less about”.
Mizuki’s new storyline for 2025 presents a unique aspect of the trans experience and has opened many eyes to its existence – stealthing is a way of presenting that aims to keep a trans identity a secret, as opposed to having it be common knowledge. You can think of it a little like the opposite of coming out, though trans people stealth for a number of reasons that don’t always have to do with shame or not being able to work out their identity. Unfortunately, Mizuki’s secret is discovered, leading them to run away from their friends in fear of not being accepted.
It’s a very real situation that isn’t often covered in games, movies, TV shows, or any kind of media, and Project Sekai has done a wonderful and touching job with this plotline thus far. Mizuki’s story also really highlights how important it is to be kind and accepting to others – it costs zero dollars, and it can make a world of difference.
