Fire Emblem Fates will allow for same-sex marriage, Nintendo of America have confirmed to Polygon. The strategy role-playing game will achieve this by incuding a single character in both its versions—Birthright and Conquest—that will be able to marry a player-created avatar of the same sex.
“In the Conquest edition of the game, there is a male character that the game’s player may have his/her male main character marry after they bond in battle. Similarly, the Birthright edition features a female character that a female main character may marry after bonding in battle,” Nintendo said.
In addition to the Conquest and Birthright versions, Fire Emblem Fates also has a third storyline that will be released as downloadable content. Both of the aforementioned characters can also be encountered in this third storyline.
Nintendo have dealt with criticism for overlooking same-sex marriage in their games before, particularly because their games are able to reach audiences that most games typically don’t, and tend to be influential both within their genres and to the industry at large. Last year, the same-sex marriage issue came up during discussions of Tomodachi Life, and Nintendo pledged at the time to be more inclusive with their future projects.
“We believe that our gameplay experiences should reflect the diversity of the communities in which we operate and, at the same time, we will always design the game specifications of each title by considering a variety of factors, such as the game’s scenario and the nature of the game play,” Nintendo said in a statement.
“In the end of course, the game should be fun to play. We feel that Fire Emblem Fates is indeed enjoyable to play and we hope fans like the game.”
Fire Emblem Fates will be released in the West in 2016.
