Nintendo Direct Announced For This Week, Focused on Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream

Another Nintendo Direct is coming this Thursday, January 29, dedicated to the company's upcoming social sim game Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.

Coming just days after a Nintendo Direct focused on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie which debuted our first look at Yoshi, Birdo and more, the next scheduled broadcast from the company will instead return to its games.

You'll be able to tune in for more details on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 life sim game this Thursday at 6am Pacific, 9am Eastern or 2pm UK time. The stream is set to run around 20 minutes.

Living the Dream will be the third game in Nintendo's Tomodachi Life franchise, which lets you oversee a community of Mii characters. While a relatively niche series in the West compared to its bigger brands, Tomodachi Life enjoys a strong following among its fans, and particularly so in Japan.

Now, the franchise will be getting its first dedicated Nintendo Direct, similar to how Kirby Air Riders was treated to its own presentation (and then a second!) last year.

The series' first game, Tomodachi Collection, launched in 2009 for Nintendo DS (albeit only in Japan). Its 3DS sequel, Tomodachi Life, was then released worldwide and went on to sell a very respectable 6.72 million units.

Memorably, Tomodachi Life experienced a backlash over its lack of same-sex relationships, something that Nintendo found itself having to comment on after rumors spread online that they were something that had been originally programmed into the game that was later removed. Nintendo denied this, though not before the controversy blew up to the point that it was parodied on late night TV by John Oliver, via a skit which featured crudely animated versions of Mario and Link snogging. Notably, Nintendo then promised that if it did make another Tomodachi Life game, it would make it "more inclusive, and [something that] better represents all players."

While the status of same-sex relationships is yet to be confirmed (though may be this week), Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is already notable for finally allowing Mii characters to have ears. It only took 20 years.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social