You should check out Blanksword — there’s a character called the Angel of Fatherhood and he’s a model of a (chosen family) dad based around being a provider and moral mentor. Very much “not a gun”. And the rest of the story is amazing too. Play it.
Viewing post in A DAD IS NOT A GUN. comments
Thanks for the rec! It’s true that there are plenty of great examples of NPC fathers in games who are caring, sensitive, and complex, but my focus is on playable father characters. When players are granted control of those fathers, their range of expression is much more restricted to the designer’s and writer’s (often regressive or conservative) ideas of fatherhood. Why should all the good dads (or parents and grandparents, generally) be relegated to side characters?