Why do games lack Non-Binary/Gender fluid options and characters?

hey it's that dog said:

Not locking customization options to specific models would be relatively easy. Including additional pronouns (I'm assuming you're asking for more than just being able to choose he/she) could be burdensome unless there were a single third pronoun that would satisfy this need. I'm not up on non-binary terminology so pardon my ignorance if that come off as a confused statement.

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More options are always to be encouraged, particularly with character creators and I think model swap stuff should be fairly straightforward. Certain unexpected roadblocks can sometimes turn-up with pronouns though: localisation being a major one. English is fairly gender-neutral, but a lot of European languages are gendered at every level, which does add a layer of complexity. I've seen this happen in practice at least once (the one occasion where I've seen a developer specify gender neutrality), where a gender-neutral term in English was localised across the continent in gendered terms.

I think that people are missing the fact that there is a difference between non-binary/gender fluid and gender neutral.

Most games that don't rely on cinematic storytelling can afford to have gender neutral character options. You don't even need to have different pronouns- as the player character, it's pretty rare for there to be a situation where you can see someone talking about you as if you weren't there, and even if that was the case, they can just use your character's name instead of saying he/she etc.

Non-binary stuff is different. It's not just something that people 'are', like being a POC/gay/disabled. Non-binary is a form of activism, of 'playing with gender' and actively attempting to reject the gender binaries that absolutely every human being is forced into. Modern non-binary activism is a contemporary way of disrupting gender binaries, which has been articulated differently in the past (e.g. through drag, or through presenting masc/femme in opposition to your assigned gender), and will be articulated differently in the future.

I think that non-binary characters in video games should actually BE non-binary characters, characters who are examining and re-ordering gender, and also struggling with the fact that being actually read as non-binary is essentially impossible, as we live in a world entirely dictated by genre binaries. I don't see non-binary as some sort of static 'category'- it's too active for that.

Otherwise, I think it's great to have gender neutral character options- something which people of ALL genders (because it's not just male/female/non-binary) can identify with.

And other than that, I think that there are also very important questions of representation in terms of POC, women, and in particular disabled people and older people.

Disclaimer: I am queer.

hey it's that dog said:

Not locking customization options to specific models would be relatively easy. Including additional pronouns (I'm assuming you're asking for more than just being able to choose he/she) could be burdensome unless there were a single third pronoun that would satisfy this need. I'm not up on non-binary terminology so pardon my ignorance if that come off as a confused statement.

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Not necessarily be easy. It would all depend on the customization and how it does it. In something like World of Warcraft, at least he early days, this would be super easy. This is because all of the outfits are essentially 'painted on', so making any outfit able to be worn by male and female is relatively easy since.

However it can become more complicated when it comes to body types and if the outfit is actually a 3d model of it's own and not just a painted on texture. Depending on how different a male and female body type in a game is, it's likely they might need a different model for each. Granted this is really only an issue with games that decide to do over exaggerate stuff. Like TERA which has human female models be these tiny things and male human models looking like they stepped off of the train from the old Gears of War games.

Basically, the complication of not locking customization is basically tied to the character models and how they actually design the outfits. Though this is an issue now, for all we know this won't be an issue eventually.

ry-dog said:

If Cyberpunk includes the option (which it absolutely should because its source material did), I think we might see more games following suit. But as it stands most games have two body types and usually ignore pronouns because it saves them needing to record extra lines. Bethesda games that already have a bunch of sliders should probably let you customise the body shape more. And I think every game should at least have unisex clothing and face options.

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Spoiler:

It won't

Council Pop said:

I think that people are missing the fact that there is a difference between non-binary/gender fluid and gender neutral.

Most games that don't rely on cinematic storytelling can afford to have gender neutral character options. You don't even need to have different pronouns- as the player character, it's pretty rare for there to be a situation where you can see someone talking about you as if you weren't there, and even if that was the case, they can just use your character's name instead of saying he/she etc.

Non-binary stuff is different. It's not just something that people 'are', like being a POC/gay/disabled. Non-binary is a form of activism, of 'playing with gender' and actively attempting to reject the gender binaries that absolutely every human being is forced into. Modern non-binary activism is a contemporary way of disrupting gender binaries, which has been articulated differently in the past (e.g. through drag, or through presenting masc/femme in opposition to your assigned gender), and will be articulated differently in the future.

I think that non-binary characters in video games should actually BE non-binary characters, characters who are examining and re-ordering gender, and also struggling with the fact that being actually read as non-binary is essentially impossible, as we live in a world entirely dictated by genre binaries. I don't see non-binary as some sort of static 'category'- it's too active for that.

Otherwise, I think it's great to have gender neutral character options- something which people of ALL genders (because it's not just male/female/non-binary) can identify with.

And other than that, I think that there are also very important questions of representation in terms of POC, women, and in particular disabled people and older people.

Disclaimer: I am queer.

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This is a really interesting perspective and it does bring to light how superficial character creation systems typically are - I hadn't ever stopped to think about it. If I create a very obviously gender non-conformative character in setting that adheres almost universally to specific gender norms, it's unlikely that (as game design currently stands) this would have any impact on my character's role within the world - even though in reality it would and does have an enormous impact.

This same is true if you drag all the character sliders to the extreme and make a seven and a half foot behemoth with bright blue hair - NPCs will address you as though you were no more remarkable than anyone else. The only exception I can think of is with races in a small number of games, or of course games with a predefined player character. I remember - for example - playing a dark elf in Morrowind and everyone greeting me with 'Hello, dunmer'... but I can never remember creating some muscle bound warrior type and having NPCs remark 'good grief, size of this lad'.

Realistically it's because non binary people are a minority of a minority of a minority. As a trans person that fits into the binary I think it really does suck that non binary people will likely not get representation. Maybe one day OP, maybe one day.

Even if you can create a non-binary character in the character creator, it also introduces other development issues. Like, what should NPCs that have never met you before refer to you as? Should there be an "Actually I'm XXX" option for whenever an NPC misgenders you? Or should we assume the world in a game has become utopic and every NPC will use the singular "they"?

Megatron said:

We can barely get women and POC as protagonists, sadly.

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Great first post as usual.

Also, purely anecdotal, but I deem myself relatively aware with regard to those issues, and I've only recently been alerted about all this non-binary talk. I mean, those issues are far from new, but it's still probably pretty new to a lot of people. I know it's not an acceptable answer, but it's the only one I have in stock right now: "give them time".

ymgve said:

Even if you can create a non-binary character in the character creator, it also introduces other development issues. Like, what should NPCs that have never met you before refer to you as? Should there be an "Actually I'm XXX" option for whenever an NPC misgenders you? Or should we assume the world in a game has become utopic and every NPC will use the singular "they"?

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Definitely the latter.

What game is going to program in awkward pronoun discussion? It wouldn't benefit anything and would just make the game worse. Just have npc's use the right pronoun.

It's the same as why open world games don't make your character go to the loo. Yeah, it's unrealistic but who gives a shit?

Prototype Viktor said:

Because games are escapism so they only have fantasy genders like Male and Female

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This post is amazing on so many levels we should make a hall of fame just to put it at the top.

Kudos.

A lot of people arguing that you'd need to a third voice track seem to busy the very obvious solution of only have a singular they/them voice track in the first place since the entire point of using those pronouns in the first place is that they are gender neutral.

AztecComplex said:

Honest question: does a character needs to be called "they" in order to be labeled non binary? That character is pretty androgynous looking but because the pronoun is "he" then that's out the window?

At the end of the day it's all labels, isn't it?

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I mean, it's up to the person/character in question how they identify, not how we identify them. Ash looks kind of feminine, but he's pretty distinct about his gender when referring to himself.

Kalentan said:

In something like World of Warcraft, at least he early days, this would be super easy. This is because all of the outfits are essentially 'painted on', so making any outfit able to be worn by male and female is relatively easy since.

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How early we talking? Because I'm recalling when Cenarion and Felheart shenanigans were alive and kicking, but even prior I remember blue dungeon sets having unique models.

GoldStarz said:

A lot of people arguing that you'd need to a third voice track seem to busy the very obvious solution of only have a singular they/them voice track in the first place since the entire point of using those pronouns in the first place is that they are gender neutral.

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If devs were willing to make that compromise, they'd be doing it already to save the money on doing two tracks. Which some do, but a lot don't.

There's value in being referred to by the pronoun you use. It makes the game feel like it's reacting to your character more.

Because believe it or not making a good character creator is expensive at moment I didn't saw any game character creator better than Black Desert.
But I agree with the fact we should at least be able to play either a male or female Mc because in lot of stories it wouldn't change anything.
Tho, if we had the choice to player either male or female Mc, I would prefer that both have different story lines/ending for replaying value, example: Sword of Mana and Star Ocean 2.

It's not a big deal to most devs, most games hardly focus on character creation

I imagine that part of the problem here, is that when you're part of the LGBTQ - and more communities, your awareness of these issues and the various minorities is rather high.
There's no question that game development is still a profession dominated by white males, and it is fairly likely that the majority of those are only tangentially aware of the existence of non-binary/genderfluid people, if at all.

As an example, I personally only learnt of non-binary/genderfluid (and others) 4-ish years ago, when I met my current girlfriend who is very into these issues.

Couple this with how cultural change tends to move glacially slow, especially in media.. And we're likely to have to wait another decade or two before such things become commonplace.
If we're lucky, there'll be one or two massively popular AAA games with such options coming out and opening the eyes of industry, speeding this process up.

RunesmithCaryll said:

This is a really interesting perspective and it does bring to light how superficial character creation systems typically are - I hadn't ever stopped to think about it. If I create a very obviously gender non-conformative character in setting that adheres almost universally to specific gender norms, it's unlikely that (as game design currently stands) this would have any impact on my character's role within the world - even though in reality it would and does have an enormous impact.

This same is true if you drag all the character sliders to the extreme and make a seven and a half foot behemoth with bright blue hair - NPCs will address you as though you were no more remarkable than anyone else. The only exception I can think of is with races in a small number of games, or of course games with a predefined player character. I remember - for example - playing a dark elf in Morrowind and everyone greeting me with 'Hello, dunmer'... but I can never remember creating some muscle bound warrior type and having NPCs remark 'good grief, size of this lad'.

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Damn, playing a game were you are mocked and excluded for being an abomination for making a 7 foot tall Warrior at the beginning sounds like a great and logical idea. But unfortunately it would probably take too much ressources to accomodate everything you can do in a character creator.

WellbornWarrior said:

Damn, playing a game were you are mocked and excluded for being an abomination for making a 7 foot tall Warrior at the beginning sounds like a great and logical idea. But unfortunately it would probably take too much ressources to accomodate everything you can do in a character creator.

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Snark? I can't tell... Not a recommendation for great game design, but obviously in terms of role-playing it's interesting these factors have never played much of a part outside of certain core systems (moral choice springs to mind). Obviously, it's something that'd be very resource heavy, but it'd be an interesting idea to see it attempted.

RunesmithCaryll said:

Snark? I can't tell... Not a recommendation for great game design, but obviously in terms of role-playing it's interesting these factors have never played much of a part outside of certain core systems (moral choice springs to mind). Obviously, it's something that'd be very resource heavy, but it'd be an interesting idea to see it attempted.

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Oblivion does this based on stats, if you have a high enough stat people will comment on it as you go by.

Saucycarpdog said:

Saints Row 4 had non binary choices for the protagonist.

Seriously saints row was ahead of it's time.

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Indeed.

Also, being able to customize your character's bulge is awesome. Most games don't even model a bulge in their male models, which is pathetic.

RunesmithCaryll said:

Snark? I can't tell... Not a recommendation for great game design, but obviously in terms of role-playing it's interesting these factors have never played much of a part outside of certain core systems (moral choice springs to mind). Obviously, it's something that'd be very resource heavy, but it'd be an interesting idea to see it attempted.

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No not at all. I love it when games do out of left field consequences for choices made earlier and making the very act of creating a character such an unforeseen choice-and-consequence mechanic sounds like a great idea if done right. For example I loved the detail in Fallout 2 that if you start with 1 intelligence you can't talk to normal people because you are too stupid but you can suddenly talk normally to the ones that are as dumb as you.

Just imagine you make an impossible blue-toned ugly smurf like you can do in Dark Souls and the people in the world actually react by being startled and confused by it.

WellbornWarrior said:

Damn, playing a game were you are mocked and excluded for being an abomination for making a 7 foot tall Warrior at the beginning sounds like a great and logical idea. But unfortunately it would probably take too much ressources to accomodate everything you can do in a character creator.

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The old Fallouts especially, and Arcanum would have different options and quest imperatives if you were skewed towards the lowest end of the scale for some characteristics, like intelligence or charisma. The low-intelligence playthroughs for those games are absolutely amazing.

But not even they did anything close to accounting for gender-neutral/non-binary that I can recall.

Rickenslacker said:

The characters in the game are great in representation as well, with TOMCAT, one of the major supporting characters, being non-binary.

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What were the devs on when they made this hairstyle

Border said:

Presumably because it is too much money, time and/or hassle to set the game up to accommodate such a small audience.

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That's what I would think. I doubt the decision is out of spite. Companies will do anything if it means more money.

I have been asking myself this same question. Great post OP.

What I find most ironic about the lack of nb representation is that many of said games already play with gender representation in other ways.

Splatoon 2 has all unisex clothing, and a very trans and nb positive community. The fact that you can continually respec your avatar's gender suggests a certain fluidity to squidkids and octolings. So why, then, do the labels on each hair style need to be split into boy/girl categories and reinforce gender notions with those labels?

Pokemon is another example. Actual Pokemon have rich gender identities, with some being agender or potentially trans/nb (female Mr. Mime). Furthermore, certain characters like James from the anime, have a long-documented performative queer identity. In James's case, he performs drag.



Yet somehow, when it comes to the player character, it's always back to two choices.

Hopefully ERA adds more choices too.

RunesmithCaryll said:

More options are always to be encouraged, particularly with character creators and I think model swap stuff should be fairly straightforward. Certain unexpected roadblocks can sometimes turn-up with pronouns though: localisation being a major one. English is fairly gender-neutral, but a lot of European languages are gendered at every level, which does add a layer of complexity. I've seen this happen in practice at least once (the one occasion where I've seen a developer specify gender neutrality), where a gender-neutral term in English was localised across the continent in gendered terms.

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This is true in my mother language: portuguese.

Whereas for example "beautiful" is a single noun for any gender in my language you have "bonito" and "bonita" for "he" and "she" respectively or "belo" "bela" and it's not always a case of only switching the last letter of adjectives, there are exceptions.

non binary characters... what is this ?

There was a Sci fi DOS game in the 80's called Portal that had a non binary social movement as part of the setting/world building.

At least Pokémon stopped asking your gender at the start, I guess.

i mean i'm still trying to get brown people in Animal Crossing

it's a long uphill battle

There definitely should be more options available.

On the topic of recent games that did it well, I think Battletech really knocked it out of the park when it came to Non-Binary character creation options this year.

Really tho, It's because mainstream culture fetishises/pedestalises the gender binary and gender dimorphism. :#)

I have advocated for non-binarized character customisers in the games I've worked on, and I believe we since indeed have done away with gender selection? (Haven't checked in a while lol) Ultimately I think it really is a matter of priorities, is it worth cutting off a player from 50% of the customisation options just for the sake of making your female models extra femme and your male models extra butch? The thing is, yeah, "typical" men and women talk and walk differently, but so do people of different weights, heights, races, etc. Drawing the line at 2 genders is a choice.
Every time I see non-gendered animation assets they always seem alright to me.

Not saying it shouldn't be done (it should), but depending on the game the cost may not be small and the audience is. Games are commercial products and so need to make financial sense for the companies involved.

I think you'll see it more with Indies, the overhead is smaller and typically the scope is as well. Also, a lot of Indies I've played don't have voice acting which is a big help.

Council Pop said:

I think that people are missing the fact that there is a difference between non-binary/gender fluid and gender neutral.

Most games that don't rely on cinematic storytelling can afford to have gender neutral character options. You don't even need to have different pronouns- as the player character, it's pretty rare for there to be a situation where you can see someone talking about you as if you weren't there, and even if that was the case, they can just use your character's name instead of saying he/she etc.

Non-binary stuff is different. It's not just something that people 'are', like being a POC/gay/disabled. Non-binary is a form of activism, of 'playing with gender' and actively attempting to reject the gender binaries that absolutely every human being is forced into. Modern non-binary activism is a contemporary way of disrupting gender binaries, which has been articulated differently in the past (e.g. through drag, or through presenting masc/femme in opposition to your assigned gender), and will be articulated differently in the future.

I think that non-binary characters in video games should actually BE non-binary characters, characters who are examining and re-ordering gender, and also struggling with the fact that being actually read as non-binary is essentially impossible, as we live in a world entirely dictated by genre binaries. I don't see non-binary as some sort of static 'category'- it's too active for that.

Otherwise, I think it's great to have gender neutral character options- something which people of ALL genders (because it's not just male/female/non-binary) can identify with.

And other than that, I think that there are also very important questions of representation in terms of POC, women, and in particular disabled people and older people.

Disclaimer: I am queer.

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I don't feel fully equipped to counter this (full disclosure: questioning my gender, but I recognize how privileged/out of my depth currently that position is) but I don't necessarily think every non-binary person views being non-binary in the same way you describe? I know plenty of people for who being non-binary is just their gender, is indeed just something they "are", and is not an intentional act of activism or disrupting norms for them. Which is not to say that's everyone's experience either (and I believe "genderqueer" has also been used historically more intentionally for that?), but just that I don't think there'd be a consensus on that aspect as a requirement.

Of course, it'd be good to see that aspect of it expressed in fiction too. There's value both in showing that examination and struggle, and in showing worlds where being non-binary is unquestioned. And we can definitely agree there's a lot more representation needed in other areas as well.

GoldStarz said:

A lot of people arguing that you'd need to a third voice track seem to busy the very obvious solution of only have a singular they/them voice track in the first place since the entire point of using those pronouns in the first place is that they are gender neutral.

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That, and as Council Pop said, also plenty of games already use shortcuts for voice acting anyway. If everyone's already calling you "The TITLE_HERE" to avoid voicing a chosen name or a binary pronoun anyway, it's a little hard for me to buy that they'd have to revoice everything for a third option, when they could also just default to "they" to begin with.

VaanXSnake said:

non binary characters... what is this ?

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Representation for people that identify as non binary

People tried to lose their heads over Battletech adding the option in, can't imagine what would happen if a more high profile game did it.

TheEchosOfTheCyborg said:

Honestly I've wanted to see a game like Dragon Age or Mass Effect handle this, Like at the start of the game in customization, the first option you see as default is a non-binary character who you can then customize or use the presets. You can also choose you pronouns (He, she or they), romantic preferences, chest and body, bust, muscles, scars, make-up etc available for all regardless of gender.

And yes I'd also want fully canon playable Non-Binary characters, Leo from Tekken is cool (and one of my mains), but we need more (:

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I imagine the next DA will do it, the hair and make up options are universal in DAI and it'd be somewhat trivial to allow the player to pick pronouns.

Ignorance, for the most part. It's hard enough to get people in the real world to acknowledge it, and a lot of video games exist in a cultural echo chamber divorced from the real world...

deepFlaw said:

I don't feel fully equipped to counter this (full disclosure: questioning my gender, but I recognize how privileged/out of my depth currently that position is) but I don't necessarily think every non-binary person views being non-binary in the same way you describe? I know plenty of people for who being non-binary is just their gender, is indeed just something they "are", and is not an intentional act of activism or disrupting norms for them. Which is not to say that's everyone's experience either (and I believe "genderqueer" has also been used historically more intentionally for that?), but just that I don't think there'd be a consensus on that aspect as a requirement.

Of course, it'd be good to see that aspect of it expressed in fiction too. There's value both in showing that examination and struggle, and in showing worlds where being non-binary is unquestioned. And we can definitely agree there's a lot more representation needed in other areas as well.



That, and as Council Pop said, also plenty of games already use shortcuts for voice acting anyway. If everyone's already calling you "The TITLE_HERE" to avoid voicing a chosen name or a binary pronoun anyway, it's a little hard for me to buy that they'd have to revoice everything for a third option, when they could also just default to "they" to begin with.

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Just want to point out that as someone who is bilingual, lots of languages are heavily gendered - English isn't. Localization could be very costly in say German where even adjectives are gendered.

Because non-binary\gender fluidity is a very new concept to the general populace and is therefore not considered to be a representation priority to major game publishers\developers.

They are just now starting to put POC\Women as headliners in games regularly in the last 3-4 years.

Indie games will be leading the charge on representation for Non-binary\Gender fluid individuals for at least 5 years

Because regular users don't care

Riesenfass said:

Just want to point out that as someone who is bilingual, lots of languages are heavily gendered - English isn't. Localization could be very costly in say German where even adjectives are gendered.

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Same in Spanish. The Monster Hunter 3DS games don't even bother gendering the translation so your character is treated like a man no matter what gender you choose.

TheMadTitan said:

the issue of gender fluidity is still one of those fringe things people don't know about or understand, even among those who're generally accepting.

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That's true. When I first played Saints Row IV I thought the possibility of having female styled hair or clothes on a guy was silly and goofy, but since then I've become more aware of LGBTQ+ struggles and I think it's cool that they included it. Every game should have that, at least there should be a togglable option to unlock everything in character creators.

Riesenfass said:

Just want to point out that as someone who is bilingual, lots of languages are heavily gendered - English isn't. Localization could be very costly in say German where even adjectives are gendered.

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One of the reasons some games have weird translations. Also, I find it extremely tacky how in Portuguese people use "@" for neutral gender nowadays (since "a" usually equals female and "o" equals male and "@" mixes both), and I don't even know how you'd do it for pronouns.

I'd definitely like to try and tackle this one day, as a translator myself.

Gloomy said:

With games with customization , none really allow for the use of other pronouns besides male or female and things like clothes options are restricted to one gender.

Is it really impossible to just label characters masculine and feminine then ask for desired pronouns and not lock anything?

Isn't the point of creating an avatar to put what you desire onto them , if that is so then why create such restrictions? Its like "if you want this hairstyle then play the male character" , "if you want this outfit then play the female character" , it gets repetitive to see with games.

It would be cool to see developers add like third character model , if some people really don't like options for their characters and allow them for those that want them all. I'd be interested in playing game like pokemon etc if they allowed more freedom with the characters. But unfortunately the games that I have interest in don't really allow that either.

Playing a fixed character with a name and outfit is better then creating a character with restrictions on what they can wear and how they can look. At least then they are representing themselves. It sucks having to spend time creating some restricted custom character.

It would be pretty cool to see main characters/side characters in big games with such identification but I dunno if that will happen any time soon.

What do you think about Non binary/Gender fluid identifies and their lack of presence in many games? What do you think can be done about it?

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You're asking why developers aren't putting a lot of effort into building characters that most people would never use.

There are games out there that allow you to dress your character with all available customization options (Sunset Overdrive is a good example of this) but you still have to pick a sex to start with (although you can change it at any time along with the other customization which is a nice touch; on my play-through I started male but switched to female because I liked the voice acting more.) I imagine that's as far as you're ever going to get for the vast majority of games out there even in the future.

But more broadly, there are always going to be limitations on character customization. It's a huge time-sink, especially for games that don't focus heavily on that role-playing aspect, and being actually gender non-conforming seems like it's generally beyond the bounds of storytelling for a player character entirely. Sunset Overdrive's customization is massive, but it has a select set of faces and only two body types, for example. There are going to be tradeoffs in most systems.

Nav said:

Pokemon is another example. Actual Pokemon have rich gender identities, with some being agender or potentially trans/nb (female Mr. Mime). Furthermore, certain characters like James from the anime, have a long-documented performative queer identity. In James's case, he performs drag.

Yet somehow, when it comes to the player character, it's always back to two choices.

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It's even weirder when you remember that Ash has crossdressed at least once in every season of the show.

Speaking as someone who is nonbinary, a big hurdle is that there is no general consensus to many terms/what's acceptable and that aiming for inclusivity would actually offend many nonbinary, gender neural, genderqueer, etc. people. For example, in this thread there's someone claiming nonbinary is a political identity while that's not how I feel but I have been taught that genderqueer is more of the "political identity." Either way, both views can potentially be horribly outdated in 50 years and seen the same way "political lesbianism" and accusations of it are today.

I know many NB people would take offense at the terms "masculine" and "feminine" being used as those aren't terms they are comfortable with and others in the LGBTQ community who believe their gender exists outside of those terms (like women who identify as butch lesbians) and feel those terms erase their identity.

On the topic of a third character model, I know some people would take offense at an "other" category for the dozens of genders that fall outside of man/woman. In regards to pronouns, most people have settled into they for a gender neutral pronoun but where do you decide to draw the line for a small community? There are some alternatives people use and if the goal is to be inclusive it could leave some to feel left out. Many people also use a mixture of pronouns interchangeably. In terms of honorific pronouns it requires devs to make decisions on things many people don't use or identify with if they need to replace a game that heavily uses Mr., Ms., Sir, or Ma'am for immersion. Imagine if the game uses Mx. when you use Misc. or Ind., that would be immersion breaking for some too.

I'm not saying this as an excuse, but I just think it's a very complicated topic especially with so many things not decided upon yet. A great start would be indie games that are released in a single language and do not have voice acting which could have more options and ask for pronouns at the beginning or they could even easily let you fill in pronoun and gender related terms to be used ala Mad Libs the same way custom character naming works.

On a personal note, if there's a character creator I create a character for the game who I don't see as myself (which in Pokémon is almost always the girl trainer for the better outfits.)

On the problems that could come with enabling the choice of he/she/they is also the translations dilemmas that would come with it.

Basically, in French, i don't see anything that could even be an approximation of "they" without being insulting. It just doesn't exist. How do you translate it then ? And if you don't, you are cutting content and have to modify the UI.

Because very few people are non-binary or gender fluid.

Because Non binary/Gender fluid are states of minds, they aren't genders. There should definitely be trans options though.

We need gaming to be more inclusive in general though, women, people of colour, LGB's are all underrepresented in gaming (and media in general).