Nintendo has announced a sequel to its life sim Tomodachi Life.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream will be released in 2026, and will be the first entry in the series in over ten years.
“Create your own Mii characters based on yourself, friends, family – anyone! – and watch them live their lives on an island out at sea,” reads the game’s description from Nintendo.
“Get involved with their relationships and experience all the weird and wonderful ways these Mii characters interact. You may even drop in on their dreams!”
The series began on the Nintendo DS with Tomodachi Collection, which was only released in Japan but sold 3.2 million units.
This was followed by Tomodachi Collection: New Life, which was released in Japan in 2013 and was then ported to the west in 2014 as Tomodachi Life. This sequel went on to sell 6.72 million copies worldwide.
The game is notable for offering a somewhat sillier take on the life sim genre, with players using their Mii characters. Players can assign a voice to their character, with the game using text-to-speech software to give them a voice.
By importing more Mii characters into the game, players can have their characters interact with each other, develop friendships, fall in love and take part in various activities, ranging from the standard to the bizarre (such as dancing around a Virtual Boy in a religious-like ceremony).
One thing that will be interesting to see is whether Nintendo will commit to its pledge to consider including same-sex relationships in the game.
When Tomodachi Life was released in Japan, a rumour spread that a bug in the game allowed same-sex relationships but had been patched out as a ‘bug’. This turned out not to be true: same-sex relationships were never in the game and players were changing their Miis’ appearance to make it look like they were.
Nintendo said it didn’t plan to add same-sex relationships to the game because it “never intended to make any form of social commentary”, but later apologised said said that if it was to ever make a third game it would “strive to design a gameplay experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players”.
It remains to be seen, then, whether Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream – the third game in the series – will be as inclusive as Nintendo had pledged.
