Nintendo giveth, and Nintendo taketh away – as evidenced by the rollercoaster surrounding today's Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Direct. The publisher fulfilled a promise it made over a decade ago by revealing that non-binary characters and queer dating options will be available in the upcoming life sim, only to immediately break the fandom's collective heart by announcing restrictions on screenshot-sharing functions.
When the previous Tomodachi Life launched globally in 2014, Nintendo came under fire for failing to include same-sex relationships in the game. The controversy got big enough to generate mainstream news coverage, prompting an apology from Nintendo and a promise: "We pledge that if we create a next installment in the 'Tomodachi' series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players."
Today, the publisher made good on that promise. Living the Dream has three gender options – male, female, and non-binary – and lets you choose any, all, or none of those genders for a character's dating preferences. At last, multisided representation for the delightfully goofy life sim.
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That was cause for celebration in the long-suffering Tomodachi Life fandom, but the old familiar feeling of "come on, Nintendo" resurfaced shortly. A support article on the official Nintendo website revealed that the publisher will "place restrictions on certain image sharing features" for the game.
"Nintendo aims to create experiences where players have the freedom to enjoy their Mii characters in their own way," the company says. "In Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, this freedom can sometimes lead to humorous, surprising, or unpredictable moments during gameplay. While these moments are often fun for players, we recognize that out-of-context scenes may be misunderstood or may not reflect the spirit in which the game is intended to be enjoyed."
The English-language article isn't specific on how those image functions are restricted, but as noted on ResetEra, the Japanese website offers more detail. "The console's functions for transferring images to smartphones, posting directly to social media, and automatically uploading images (Nintendo Switch 2 only) will not be available," according to a machine translation of the site. Switch 2 can, at least, still show the game to their friends via Game Chat.
Much of Tomodachi Life's charm comes from showcasing absurd character interactions with others, and it seems downright absurd that Nintendo would try to lock down such a core appeal of the game. At the same time, I can pretty easily imagine a world where people are putting hate speech in the mouths of Miis resembling celebrities and political figures, and I imagine that's not a world Nintendo is interested in helping facilitate.
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