In a landmark decision that is sure to have every rainbow-clad farmer awash in joy, XSeed has revealed yesterday in a Localization Blogpost that Rune Factory 5 will be the first in the series to add gay marriage. After years of advocation by both longtime fans and XSeed themselves, the developers over at Marvelous are adding gay marriage for all of the game’s 12 romanceable characters – in patch form for the already released Japanese version, and from day 1 for next year’s Western release on March 22nd.
While there was a way of quasi doing this in Rune Factory 4 by swapping your character’s visual gender after you beat the game (which, lemme tell you, awakened something in me back in the day), this is a fullblown inclusion, down to cutscenes and character dialogue. The Localization Blog heavily details a lot of the nitty gritty work of accommodating for this change, including different pet nicknames from voice acting, having to produce gender-neutral lines when they weren’t sure they could make two different (gendered) lines for marriage dialogue, and editing other little heteronormative things in the game. They also thank the fans who had requested this for years for being patient.
As a lesbian myself, this is big and wonderful news for one of my favorite niche little franchises, and something that will hopefully be series-standard going forward. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find out which humble fictional farmtown bachelorette I would like to enamor with my sapphic wiles.
Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
