2026's "lesbian knight game," 1348 Ex Voto, is short on lesbians

I've got a bone to pick with the internet. Specifically, the corner of the internet that's very angry 1348 Ex Voto exists. You see, all this time I've been unironically referring to it by its alternative title, coined by its earliest detractors: "the lesbian knight game." It's a neat shorthand for a story-driven action-adventure that doesn't have the most memorable name. It's also wildly inaccurate.

Developer Sedleo hasn't marketed 1348 Ex Voto as an explicitly LGBTQIA+ game, yet its portrayal of a female knight-errant and her close bond with a castle servant is apparently enough to trigger the "woke" alarm. I get it. As a woman who loves women, sapphic vibes sing to me like a clarion call, and Ex Voto's prospective pairing shows great promise. Shakespeare favored the forbidden romance between highborn and lowborn, and such lovers continue to thrive in the romantasy section of any major bookstore.

Aeta's gender nonconformity and Bianca's defiance of the feudal hierarchy invite queer readings, but Ex Voto remains remarkably platonic. It's the opposite of Sappho and her friend; it never even stoops to the conventions of courtly love - a missed opportunity in a story that puts an unconventional medieval knight at its center. Aeta carries Bianca's titular ex-voto much like a knight's love token, yet we never see so much as a tender brush of hands.

Medieval records of lesbianism are scarce, but we know that they existed. The Church's penitentials are evidence enough, and explain why artistic renditions of love between women in this time period are cloaked in the euphemism of intimate friendship. No such threat is hanging over the heads of the Ex Voto development team. Perhaps Sedleo's reticence to go "full lesbian" in an era that didn't have a term for it is a signifier of its commitment to historical accuracy. It also reads as cowardice to the very audience it's targeting.

So then, how would one best describe this relationship? BFFs? "It's Complicated"? Sedleo insists that Bianca is Aeta's "closest one" in Ex Voto's blurb, yet the recent loss of Aeta's family undercuts even this unspecified depth of feeling. Cast in the shadow of her grief, Aeta's vow to rescue Bianca after their home is sacked by briganti doesn't so much land as an expression of romantic love as it does the fear of losing the last person left in her life.

The public outcry against a woman with a bowl cut and little else is amusing on its own merit; it's compounded once you consider gaming's own history. Aeta doggedly follows in the footsteps of the most celebrated chivalric knight in videogames: Mario. In each of Ex Voto's nine chapters, she trudges through a new location towards a point of interest, only to reach it and discover that her princess is in another castle - sometimes literally. Nintendo has tempered the romance between Mario and Princess Peach in recent years, presumably to fortify its family-friendly image, but even the most honorable plumber receives a peck on the cheek for all his trouble. God forbid Mario had been a butch electrician.

Bianca's abduction is the inciting incident that propels Aeta on her own journey to knighthood, and therein lies Ex Voto's fatal flaw. The relationship between these two characters is the beating heart of this tale, yet they only share around 15 minutes of screen time across six hours. Alby Baldwin and Jennifer English both deliver strong performances when they do come together, uncanny valley mocap rigging and a script that teeters on the brink of cliché notwithstanding. Unfortunately, it's not enough to persuade me that there's anything deeper between these two characters than what the plot demands.

Ex Voto shows greater promise as a straightforward medieval game than a romance. As Aeta cuts a near-linear path through castles, villas, and encampments, she dispenses commentary on her surroundings like a tour guide in a living history museum. Many locations would look right at home in a glossy catalog for the UK's National Trust conservation sites. Schrödinger's lesbians might make it easier to take Ex Voto at such a face value; it also opens it up to a death-blow from its contemporaries. Between Kingdom Come Deliverance and A Plague Tale, it really can't get a look in.

With more time and money, 1348 Ex Voto could have been the next Hellblade. Sedleo has clearly aspired to replicate the same kind of experience, immersing players in a specific time and place for Aeta's journey to unfold. On paper, it's a great concept. The execution, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Given the Middle Ages' deep-rooted associations with radical conservatism, the intense backlash against an indie game that centers on a sapphic knight is unsurprising. The real surprise, however, is Sedleo's reluctance to fully commit to the story it wants to tell - one that leaves even the most liberal lesbian walking away feeling short-changed.