Support NeoGAF

[Bullet Club]

Rune Factory 5 Will Feature Same-Sex Marriage In The West​

Players can marry all 12 candidates




Rune Factory 5 was one of the many games shown off in the September 2021 Nintendo Direct, and it was revealed that for the first time in the series, we're going to get the ability to marry people of the same gender — despite rumours to the contrary.



The Japanese version of Rune Factory 5 specifically did not contain same-sex marriage, which many were disappointed by, but the English, French, and German versions will include it, thanks to the work of the localisation team.

It's not just for the female characters, either — there are married pairs of male characters, too. The addition has been confirmed by XSEED themselves, who made the decision to add the feature to the Western version.

"Rune Factory 5 will be the first game in the series to include same-sex marriage. This means that from the start of the game you can marry any of the 12 wonderful marriage candidates as Ares or Alice without avatar-swapping or other conditions.
This feature was not present in the Japanese release of the game in May of this year, but will be added to that version in a future patch. It will be included in our game from launch."

The addition of same-sex marriage did not delay the game — the team was already working on localisation and QA testing, and the release schedule was chosen specifically to accommodate the new content.

Implementing same-sex marriage did mean a lot of work, though, from adding pronoun-specific tags right into the dialogue and recording tons of voice lines to account for all the different gendered nicknames, to revamping the wedding cutscenes to include new options.

"We had been working on the game’s English version for over a year at this point, and viewing these new cutscenes was an emotional moment. This was something we had argued to be included for many years, and we’re so grateful to everyone who helped make it a reality."

And hey, since you're here — check out the bachelors and bachelorettes that you'll be able to pick from:



Priscilla, Scarlett, Fuqua (Images: Marvelous (XSEED))


Ludmila, Beatrice, Lucy (Images: Marvelous (XSEED))


Ryker, Reinhard, Martin (Images: Marvelous (XSEED))


Murakumo, Cecile, Lucas (Images: Marvelous (XSEED))

Rune Factory 5 will be out on the Nintendo Switch on 22nd March 2022.

Source: Nintendo Life

 

[lh032]

is it just me or the frame rate is trash?

 

[Bullet Club]

is it just me or the frame rate is trash?

It's a Switch game.

 

[reksveks]

Options are good and really doubt we are hurting some artistic integrity here

 

[Woopah]

That's awesome news. Well done Marvelous and XSEED.

 

[GametimeUK]

It's nice to have the option. I'm sure many of us will not object to this implementation and actually want games to be inclusive.

 

[mejin]

No problem with that.

But I do think everytime a dev uses this card it's cause the game won't evolve shit.

 

[MrHydra933BR]

As long as it's not mandatory it's okay.

 

[Kuranghi]

But can you marry yourself?

As long as it's not mandatory it's okay.

 

[McCheese]

Sweet, more options never hurt anyone. I wonder how this works, isn't romance an automatic thing when you reach a particular friendship level? I'm guessing you need an item or something to trigger it so you don't accidentally end up married to your bro..

 

[Guilty_AI]

Meanwhile fujoshis:

 

[Nemesisuuu]

So things went south quickly?

Spoiler

/jk

 

[Fugitive Sex]

I would rather my character stay single than get with any of those freaky looking things.

 

[STARSBarry]

Yeah honestly this seems like a pretty easy solution, so how's pregnancy going to be handled? Will you just adopt a child or something?

 

[A Rifter in Space]

That's disappointing. But then again XSEED isn't exactly the best either. They sat on Trails SC for years longer than it needed to be because they hired some rando from somethingawful who lucked into translating Recettear but couldn't handle an actual job and locked himself in his room for a year while never reporting on deadlines.

He got a nice little article from Kotaku about how hard having a job is, though. I'm glad at least Trails got snatched away from that company because otherwise we'd still be waiting for Cold Steel 4 or even pondering why Cold Steel stopped at 2 since XSEED can't seem to market its games without controversy.

 

[Xeaker]

 

[ssringo]

 

[Epic Sax CEO]

I don't get why only in these parts, in many parts of Japan same sex marriage is also already legal.

 

[01011001]

weird, in the past it was usually the other way around, where same sex stuff was taken out of the western release

this is most likely fanservice for all the fujoshis that play these games

 

[Guilty_AI]

Yeah honestly this seems like a pretty easy solution, so how's pregnancy going to be handled? Will you just adopt a child or something?

Futa and yaoi holes

 

[zeorhymer]

Didn't realize Rune Factory was still going. The previous ones I've played were pretty quaint.

 

[DeepEnigma]

"BANNED!"

 

[Zambatoh]

Ah yes. Equal opportunity ass-pounding.

 

[Hendrick's]

It's a Switch game.

This is why we needed more than an oled screen.

 

[LazyParrot]

I don't get why only in these parts, in many parts of Japan same sex marriage is also already legal.

Name one. And Japan is getting this in a patch, as far as I can tell.

 

[LOLCats]

Fine here, not gonna lie, i like girl on girl

 

[Kamina]

Lesbians

 

[John Bilbo]

Fine here, not gonna lie, i like girl on girl

 

[SpecialAgentZ]

So, we're getting the degraded version here in the west, huh?

 

[Zambatoh]

So, we're getting the degraded version here in the west, huh?

This requires them to actually add content to the game retroactively. It's basically an expansion pack that just happens to be free with the game. You don't have to mess with it, but the option is there.
So I wouldn't call it "degraded".

 

[Hnjohngalt]

Yeah honestly this seems like a pretty easy solution, so how's pregnancy going to be handled? Will you just adopt a child or something?

Maybe you create baby scissors with bows on them and blue hairs... its a JRPG you never know.

 

[Woopah]

So, we're getting the degraded version here in the west, huh?

what does that even mean?

 

[Stitch]

This is why we needed more than an oled screen.

No we need better devs because this looks and runs shit even for a switch game

 

[Yamisan]

So they're trying to finish off the dead series even faster?

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Why do people get married in games? Seriously, any kind of in game wedding is strange (unless it's part of a scenario).

And why not polyamory?

 

[Epic Sax CEO]

Name one. And Japan is getting this in a patch, as far as I can tell.

Oh, I was wrong using the word "many".
It's right, I had forgotten. The Japanese government actually does not recognize same sex marriages, but some local governments are circumventing this lack of recognition with local laws (5 Prefectures, 129 municipalities benefiting almost half the population with more to come). With courts ruling the lack of recognition by the government unconstitutional it's just a matter of time.

 

[Saint Boot]

Ignoring the marriage issue, I am disappointed that this is not up for pre order at U.S amazon yet.
Never played a game in this series yet to be honest. Hopefully it get's listed soon.

 

[HotPocket69]

Whoever plays shit like this needs to be on a watchlist

 

[darkangel-212559]

All lesbian WAIFU is good WAIFU.

Day fucking ONE! You hear me BOOOOYZZZZ!

 

[Javthusiast]

Nice. I love Yuri.

 

[Guilty_AI]

The duality of man

 

[plushyp]

Nice. I love Yuri.

 

[Javthusiast]

 

[Ryohazuki282]

Pretty upsetting, to say the least. Not necessarily the fact that the game features it, but that the localization team pushed for it. These gaming companies need to remove these activists from their teams, and they need to start doing it now.

 

[Spukc]

omg whatever will i do now

UwU

 

[Damien Crowley]

So things went south quickly?

Spoiler

/jk

"Same sex", not "first degree family"!

 

[Xeaker]

I would pay 5€ extra if I could get the japanese version with english text and without this filth.

 

[reksveks]

Nice to see the people that I can put on the ignore list.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Rune Factory 5 Will Feature Same-Sex Marriage In The West​

 

[Astral Dog]

Thats pretty cool, i was gonna buy it eventually but still very nice effort from XSEED , though im still worried about the heavy framerate issues and bugs, Rune Factory is a cool series but releasing it at that state in japan was unfortunate have they released any patches since the japanese release?


Edit: good news at least they been working hard on those patches, 10 since launch:

Rune Factory 5 (Switch): Software updates (latest: Ver. 1.0.2) - Perfectly Nintendo

On this page, you will find all there is to know about the various Software updates for Rune Factory 5 on Nintendo Switch!

www.perfectly-nintendo.com