Butterfly Soup 2 retains the first game’s LGBTQIA+ themes and doubles down by exploring Akarsha and Noelle’s crushes on each other, and the beginning of their relationship. Game Rant spoke to Lei about the experience of writing and creating Butterfly Soup 2, with Lei explaining her peculiar methods for coming up with the crush confession scene. The developer also talked about LGBTQIA+ representation in the video game industry at large, specifically mentioning how important it was for Guilty Gear Strive to let Bridget come out as a trans woman.
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How Butterfly Soup 2 Showcases Hyper-Realistic School Romances
While Butterfly Soup focused more on the relationship between Diya and Min, which Lei described as “pretty straightforward,” the sequel does a great job exploring the highs and lows of how teenagers handle school crushes. Akarsha and Noelle’s romance has players on the edge of their seats at all times because it builds on the moments of silence, the awkwardness, and the embarrassment of confessing one’s feelings online. This emotional exploration is something indie games do well by their smaller-scale nature, and Butterfly Soup 2 is no exception.
Lei talked about how she used her own online chat logs to write a realistic version of Akarsha’s confession to Noelle, which ends up with the former trying to pass it off as a prank her brother set up. This scene is based on one of Lei’s experiences with a failed confession when she was around Akarsha’s age. Akarsha wondering if Noelle knows the truth is made excruciatingly authentic, and it shows how Butterfly Soup 2 can tackle school crushes with the maturity and self-awareness that come from adult hindsight.
Butterfly Soup 2 Creator Praises Guilty Gear Strive For Bridget’s Coming Out
Despite the newfound increase in valuable LGBTQIA+ representation for modern games, it’s still not common for AAA titles to make their characters canonically queer, often leaving it up to indie games. There are notable exceptions like The Last of Us with Ellie, or Apex Legends with Catalyst and other characters, which is an invaluable source of visibility for the queer community. That’s why Lei mentioned Guilty Gear Strive’s Bridget, whose trans identity was a positive beacon that shone a light on the journey of self-discovery.
While Butterfly Soup 2 (and by extension its predecessor) exceeded her expectations in terms of reception and reach, established franchises can do this even more effectively. As such, it makes sense for Lei to be willing to try out even more ideas based on queer characters in the future. Many queer gamers hope LGBTQIA+ representation becomes more common across the board, but the industry already is on the right track to make this happen.
Butterfly Soup 2 is available now on PC.
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