Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream announces release date and fixes decade-old controversy

Get ready for more Mii drama

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream took center stage at a dedicated Nintendo Direct this week, which offered an extended look at the upcoming social simulation game, including a release date. The long-awaited sequel will arrive April 16, over a decade after the original. Living the Dream will be available for both the original Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, though there's currently no upgraded edition for the newer console.

Tomodachi Life arrived on the 3DS in 2013, allowing players to design and observe Miis inhabiting an island community. Both their looks and personality could be customized, with the latter shaping their interactions with other inhabitants. While players do need to help maintain the Mii population's happiness, what made the game unique was the amount of autonomy displayed by the created characters. The Miis often entertain themselves and can form relationships with other islanders, making a good portion of the gameplay more about observing the silly things that they do. Living the Dream was first announced as a sequel during a Nintendo Direct in March 2025, with an additional trailer premiering at another Direct that September.

The Living the Dream Nintendo Direct showed off several in-game features, particularly focusing on Mii interactions and the vast customization options for both characters and the island. One of the biggest additions players noticed was that the game will finally make same-sex relationships possible for Miis — something notably not included in the original. During Mii customization, players can now select the gender preference of a character, and non-binary has also been added as a gender identity option.

Customization is very robust for Miis, including some brand-new facial options unique to Living the Dream, like ear selection. Personality settings are very similar to the original, with players tweaking five facets to determine how Miis interact. Over time, Mii personalities will blossom even more through the ability to gift them Little Quirks, which are small personal habits that make them unique.

The town itself can also be extensively customized. The Nintendo Direct showed off several businesses: food store Fresh Kingdom, clothing store Where and Wear, news station MNN, room-revamping company T&C Reno, a Marketplace full of mystery item bags, and Foto-Tomo, where players can pose Miis together to make memories. Two other businesses, Quik Build and Palette House, will no doubt remind many players of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The former is used for town decoration to add things like fences and greenery, and the latter lets players create and utilize custom patterns on a variety of different objects, ranging from sweaters to entire houses.

Mii-to-Mii interaction is still the heart of Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, and this time players have more control over the relationships that form. Miis will still ultimately make their own decisions, but can now be plucked up and placed into interactions. There looks to be ample potential for drama, too, with the Nintendo Direct showing a confession of love that turned into three confessions of love. Up to eight Miis can live under one roof, offering up a host of new ways for relationships to unfold. When April rolls around, there will very likely be some new reality show-esque experiments happening in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.