Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the first game in the series to remove a gender choice, opting for a “style” choice instead; however, this removal of gender choice is only found in the US localization. As seen in the image above, every other version of the game delineates the masculine and feminine icons as binary gender options.
Soon after the game’s release, an interview with the game’s director, Aya Kyogoku, and producer, Hirashi Nogami, was published by the Washington Post. In it, Kyogoku says about the game’s character customization, “We basically wanted to create a game where users didn’t really have to think about gender or if they wanted to think about gender, they’re also able to”. As Kyogoku and Nogami have not further commented on why this only seems to be the case in the US localization, it is unclear as to why this isn’t the case in other localizations or the Japanese version.
To our knowledge however, all versions of the game allow players to switch gender or style at any point, which is a feature that has not yet been in any game in the Animal Crossing series.
As Animal Crossing: New Horizons is still quite new, we would love to hear about any additional new LGBTQ content to the series. If you find anything not listed on the Archive, please feel free to let us know.
LGBTQ References in this game series:
Animal Crossing (2001): Blanca, Gracie, Julia, Saharah
Animal Crossing: Wild World (2005): Mentions of Same-Sex Relationships, Opposite-Gender Haircuts
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2012): Crossdressing and Gender Expression, Isabelle, Villager Flirting
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020): CJ and Flick, Mentions and Queer Readings, Removal of Gender Choice
Citations:
- Brap. (2020, March 22). Why did they remove gender in Animal Crossing: New Horizons only in the USA localization? Retrieved April 16, 2020, from https://www.neogaf.com/threads/why-did-they-remove-gender-in-animal-crossing-new-horizons-only-in-the-usa-localization.1532943/
- Favis, E. (2020, March 23). Nintendo explains philosophy behind Animal Crossing’s big changes, such as gender expression and terraforming. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/03/23/nintendo-explains-philosophy-behind-animal-crossings-big-changes-like-gender-expression-terraforming/#comments-wrapper
- yeomk2. (2020, March 23). I’m disappointed with jpn ver #どうぶつの森 #AnimalCrossing #ACNH [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/yeomk2/status/1242012520946135040?s=21
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