Seeing this type of discourse a lot sometimes in games in general with romancable companions I was wondering your take on this: the "everyone is playersexual" vs "companions have set sexualities of different types so some are locked off". I've seen good arguments for both and just curious about what you thought
I could give you the cheatcode answer which is, I'm bisexual so I make my love interests bisexual with a canon history of bisexuality which is also convenient in terms of game mechanics because it allows everyone to romance them 🤪
More seriously though, I don't see anything inherently lacking with "playersexual" love interests, but that depends entirely on how good the character writing is in all other aspects. If a companion is written well and they're playersexual, I think you'll find most people won't complain, because there's other substance to the character that the player can relate to or connect to or enjoy exploring. If a companion is playersexual and poorly written/shallow and just blindly attracted protagonist simply because they're the protagonist, though? That's usually when people get annoyed.
In terms of representation it is of course very meaningful to have stories and characters who make readers feel seen, in which case I also think it's good to have narratives where the love interests do feature set sexualities and gender identities that are informed by the setting. In that way, it's a very interesting bit of worldbuilding that the author can engage in. But of course the downside is that some people are unable to romance the character they want to romance without having to play as a certain gender, which may be frustrating especially if you're queer with very few options catered to you in most games, and now you're forced to play a straight character.
In the end, I don't think it's really a choice between the two. We can have games that do playersexual, we can have games that do specific sexualities, we can have games that make everyone bisexual hotties, etc. There's no need to fixate on which method is "better" because like you said, they both have pros and cons. We can have all the cakes and eat them too!
