Gamers across the world are going wild for the new Spider-Man game, which was released on Playstation 4 last week—but LGBT+ fans are especially happy, as the game includes rainbow flags.
Spidey fans have been tweeting their surprise and joy at seeing the city full of rainbow flags in the new game.
Writer Saladin Ahmed, said: “Thinking about all the 12-year-old kids who will be playing this game and seeing this in towns where it’s not safe to put that flag up.” His tweet has been liked and retweeted over 50,000 times.
Another gamer, Chris Hatfield tweeted that he had seen “several rainbow flags” as well as “an awesome pride wall” in the game.
“This game was already awesome but just crossed over to epic!” he added.
The London Gaymers Twitter group were also excited at the development, and asked fans of the game to send in their own “Spidey Selfies” and shared an image of the game which shows Spiderman against a rainbow wall.
Another person, called Wally D, called the representation “amazing” and said: “I have never seen passive LGBT representation in a video game before. I literally did a triple take the first time I saw a rainbow flag.”
Meanwhile, Jesse Bowden said the game developers should add “a side challenge for spotting rainbow flags.”
Not all fans were happy, however. One Twitter user accused the game’s developers of using characters “to promote a social or political agenda.”
“You’re acting as propagandists,” he added, before mentioning that there was “nothing wrong with gay/trans persons.”
The new Spider-Man game was released last week and has already garnered positive reviews from fans and critics alike. It is also the first licensed game released by new developer, Insomniac.
The game tells a new story that is not connected to other Spider-Man films, comic books or other video games.
Many LGBT+ gamers have criticised the industry in the past for a lack of representation of queer characters and themes.
Nintendo was forced to apologise in 2014 after GLAAD criticised them for not allowing same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life.
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