Final Fantasy XIV guild holds pride parade to celebrate update 2.4's same-sex marriage

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Back at E3, Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida announced that the upcoming 2.4 update would allow any two players to marry in-game, regardless of race, nation or gender. To celebrate, one in-game guild organised a "Pixel Parade", taking to the virtual streets for a rainbow-themed party. Finally, a good reason for the MMO genre's obsession with dyes.

Organised by the LGBT guild Rough Trade Gaming, the parade was also held to honour the memory of 'Erotes', a member of their community who was killed during the recent Calgary stabbings in Canada. "Even when tragedy affects our community, there's still a reason to keep on marching," writes video uploader 'Levi G' in the description.

When marriage was originally announced as an upcoming feature, around the re-launch of FFXIV, Square-Enix hadn't planned on including same-sex marriage. "This is an extremely controversial topic that has been under discussion in the MMO world for the past few years. First we would like to start out with opposite-sex marriage, and then consider the feedback from our players in order to make a careful decision," they said at the time.

By E3, the decision had been made. "We discussed it and we realized within Eorzea, why should there be restrictions on who pledges their love or friendship to each other?" Yoshida said. "And so we decided to go this way."

FFXIV's 2.4 update will also add the Rogue class, and Ninja job type.

Thanks, IGN .

Phil Savage
Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.