Groundbreaking Game ‘Tell Me Why’ Is Free to Download During Pride Month

June is Pride Month, and to help celebrate, developer Dontnod has made the game Tell Me Why completely free to download on Steam, Windows 10 and Xbox consoles through June 30. Once you download the game, it’s yours to keep permanently, even after Pride Month is over.

If you have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, you can also play Tell Me Why on an Android-based phone or tablet.

Tell Me Why is an episodic game originally released over three weeks in August–September 2020. The game features twin protagonists Alyson and Tyler Ronan, the latter of which is a transgender man. It made history because Tyler is the first transgender protagonist to come from a major studio.

The popularity of the game among the LGBTQIA+ community is precisely why the developer and publisher have made the game free during Pride Month. In an announcement on Tell Me Why’s official site, Dontnod and Xbox Game Studios Publishing say they’ve been “humbled by and deeply grateful for the many gamers – especially trans and queer gamers – who have found understanding and hope in our game.”

They continue, “We’ve received heartfelt messages from players all over the world about how Tyler’s homecoming as a trans man and Alyson’s struggle with trauma have impacted them, encouraged them, or made them feel a little less alone, especially amid the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic and pervasive transphobic rhetoric in places like the United States and the United Kingdom.”

By making the game free for Pride Month, they are hoping more players than ever before can experience this breakthrough title. And they hope that players might spend the money that would otherwise go towards this title on vendors and on causes that help to support queer and trans communities all over the world.