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:

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

Are you surprised by this series-first addition, or do you think it's about darn time? Let us know in the comments.

[source xseedgames.com]