I am desperately trying to wrap my head around this upcoming heterosexual omegaverse game

Despite being blissfully unaware of what frotting was until earlier today (cheers for that Fortnite), I am more knowledgeable in the ways of the omegaverse—the subgenre of speculative fiction built around the idea of a human dominance hierarchy similar to that often attributed to pack animals like wolves—than I would like.

The style kickstarted back in gay Supernatural fanfiction circles and has since spun off into a huge subsection of manga and manhwa while still remaining popular in written fanfiction. The whole thing riffs heavily off how we viewed wolf dynamics for years—huamns born as alphas, betas, or omegas; the latter emitting pheromones that can make the former uncontrollably horny et cetera—and in the vast majority of cases is very much a male-on-male thing. Yes, there is also mpreg. I will not elaborate.

Its position as mostly homoerotic fiction, then, makes it difficult to envision such a thing told through a more heterosexual lens. But it seems like that's exactly what Idea Factory is trying to do with its upcoming Otomate Verse Project, according to Automaton Media.

There's very little information to go off of right now. It's an otome game for starters—a visual novel that usually consists of one female protagonist being romantically pursued by a cast of male bachelors—and an omegaverse setting "with both men and women". But a lack of info hasn't stopped people from going wild trying to figure out just what a straight piece of omegaverse fiction looks like.

"I want to be happy but are you gonna just make all the women beta or omega and all the men alpha or beta? Because there's no point then, that's not omegaverse, and this is just taking advantage of a popular verse," one reply under the announcement read.

The main concern seems to be that it'll ultimately play out like any other straight romance. "Straight omegaverse and it's just the affirmation of classic gender roles," one quoted post wrote. Another said: "'Omegaverse' and it's just another hetero story with more patriarchy".

Of course the solution here is to make the main character the alpha—I cannot believe I am writing these words on PC Gamer dot com—but the likelihood of an otome game making a move like that seems slim-to-none.

Whatever this game ends up becoming, I am interested in seeing what the reaction ultimately ends up being. As others have said, it could very much just end up Being Incredibly Straight. But it also has the chance of reframing the omegaverse setting and offering more heterosexual stories the opportunity to branch into new things. Not like it has enough of those opportunities already, mind. But you know.