Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (2020) — often abbreviated as SoS: FoMT — is a charming farming and dating simulator from Marvelous, available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. Rated E10+ for mischief, suggestive themes, and light alcohol references, the game invites players to revive their late grandfather’s neglected farm in Mineral Town. But beyond crops and livestock, SoS: FoMT quietly made history as the first game in its long-running series to embrace same-sex romance.
This remake of the 2003 Game Boy Advance titles Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town merges both games into one, letting players choose a male or female protagonist upfront (though nonbinary pronouns wouldn’t arrive until 2023’s A Wonderful Life). The series’ name changed in 2014 after developer Marvelous split from localizer Natsume, which retained the Harvest Moon branding. While Natsume’s newer Harvest Moon games only introduced same-sex marriage in 2023’s Winds of Anthos, Marvelous’ Story of Seasons series has included it since FoMT.
In SoS: FoMT, players can court any eligible bachelor or bachelorette regardless of their avatar’s gender, effectively making the entire cast and protagonist bisexual by design. Notably, in-game romance events and dialogue do not change based on the protagonist’s gender. Heart indicators visibly track affection for all romanceable characters and same-sex unions are called “marriage”, a deliberate upgrade from the Japanese version’s “Best Friends” system where the player was allowed to commit to a same-sex partner, who refers to themselves as the player’s roommate or best friend (functioning the same way as a heterosexual marriage in terms of game mechanics).
XSeed, the current localizer, emphasized its commitment to equality in a 2020 blog post:
[Same-sex couples] will be given identical treatment to opposite-sex couples… This has been a very long time coming in the Story of Seasons series, and the producer has been supportive of our decision from very early in development.
Though the game never uses labels like “bisexual”, a tie-in comic
hints at the protagonist’s openness to love across genders. In one panel, the male protagonist notes, as he spends time in Mineral Town and gets to know people: “I might even fall in love”, in the same panel is an image of the town’s bachelorettes, implying his attraction to women, and in the next panel, he adds, more explicitly, “The boys are cute too…” — a subtle but meaningful nod to fluid attraction.
While indie darling Stardew Valley (2016) beat SoS to same-sex romance, FoMT’s inclusion marked a turning point for the franchise. This move resonated with players as the game became XSeed’s fastest-selling title on a single platform, moving 100,000 copies in two weeks. Though it’s hard to attribute sales solely to LGBT features, the demand was clear.
SoS: FoMT proves that farming sims — a genre built on nostalgia — can evolve. By normalizing queer relationships without fanfare, it set a precedent for future Story of Seasons titles and reminded players that love, like agriculture, thrives when given room to grow.