So, Celeste, without the developer explicitly intending it, captured preconscious transness. Yet, also, even as it embodies an authentic element of trans experience, Celeste’s journey is an incredibly archetypal hero’s journey. In using a ‘universal’ type of story structure to tell a trans story, Celeste presents Madeline’s life as available for understanding and empathy, and connected to basic forms of human struggle and change. Celeste is a trans game in a way we have little access to, in a landscape and marketplace that demands tags, labels, explicitness. Every year we get lists of ‘queer games’ coming out the next year, and it’s very difficult to determine what ‘queer game’ actually means, particularly prior to release.

Source: The Times January 23, 2024 11:02 UTC