Tell Me Why – the supernatural adventure whose protagonist is a trans man – is free to play and keep throughout Pride Month.
You know how Pride Month usually goes. Companies change their logos to rainbow versions and think “that’ll do, we’ve made an effort” – they then get some abuse from the more unpleasant denizens of social media. But at the end of the month, they get to change their logos back and the abuse stops for them.
It carries on for everyone else, but at least they look they made an effort. Lots of noise about inclusivity, lots of rainbow logos, lots of empty gestures.
Anyway, apropos of nothing in particular, developer Dontnod and publisher Xbox Game Studios are giving away Tell Me Why for free this month. Why the preamble about Pride Month? Because Tell Me Why’s protagonist is a trans man and, while we haven’t been given a reason for the giveaway, we’re assuming it’s to coincide with Pride Month.
Glibness about the corporate takeover of Pride aside, it’s actually brilliant that Tell Me Why is free right now. While it’s far from the only video game with a trans protagonist, it’s certainly one of the highest-profile, and an absolute rarity from one of the major publishers. Seeing any kind of representation of trans people – admittedly through Dontnod’s supernatural lens – in mainstream media is fantastic. The more people who get to play it the better, frankly.
While it at first seemed that Tell Me Why was only available for free on the Windows Store, it now appears to be free on Steam, too. All three episodes will be available to download and keep, for free, until July 1, 2021.
Once that date has passed, it will (presumably) go back to the original format, which is the first episode for free, with episodes two and three available to purchase if you enjoyed dipping your toe in the first. (And it’s also included on Xbox Game Pass.)
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