Tomodachi Life, known in Japan as is a 2013 social simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the second entry in the Tomodachi Life series following the Japan-exclusive Nintendo DS title Tomodachi Collection (2009). The game follows the day-to-day interactions of Miis, customizable avatars, residing on an island as they build relationships and request help with problems, all overseen by the player. Tomodachi Life is open-ended, with the player's only goal being to maintain their Miis' happiness.
Much of Tomodachi Collection's staff returned to produce the sequel, including director Ryutaro Takahashi. The team sought to create a sociable and warm atmosphere within Tomodachi Life, wanting to inspire players to observe their real-world relationships more positively through the Miis. At the request of Shinya Takahashi, Nintendo SPD's General Manager, the game's art director, Mai Okamoto, reworked its visuals to achieve a "next-generation" feel.
Tomodachi Life was initially released in Japan on April18, 2013. Unlike its predecessor, Nintendo released the game abroad. American and Japanese developers worked to develop enhanced text-to-speech components for several years. Certain imagery native to Japan, currencies, and specific Mii animations were adjusted to better reflect foreign cultures; this stage of localization took over a year. Overseas editions were released on June6, 2014, in North America and Europe; June7, in Australia; and July17, in South Korea.
Tomodachi Life sold over 6.73million copies worldwide by March2025, making it one of the best-selling 3DS games. It received generally mixed reviews; critics praised its humor and overall charm but took issue with perceived repetitive gameplay and lack of user control. The inability for Miis to enter same-sex relationships was criticized by reviewers and became the subject of online controversy. In the years following its release, Tomodachi Life attracted a cult following among audiences through viral social media posts depicting outlandish Mii interactions.
A sequel for the Nintendo Switch, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, was released on April16, 2026. Among other customization additions, the player can manually select their Miis' romantic preferences, permitting same-sex pairings.
Gameplay
Tomodachi Life is a social simulation game that centers on the everyday lives of user-customizable Mii avatars who reside on an island, the player acting as an external observer. The player can either create Miis from scratch, import them from the 3DS's built-in Mii Maker application, or scan a specialized QR code attached to an existing Mii. While constructing Miis, the player assigns them a personality by selecting various temperament attributes. Miis speak through robotic text-to-speech voices that can be manually altered. Much of the game's interactivity, such as interacting with the Miis and navigating the island, comes in the form of physically tapping the 3DS' touchscreen. Time on the island passes parallel to that set on the 3DS' internal clock.
Gameplay begins with the player naming the island and creating a Mii look-alike, who is intended to visually resemble the player. The Miis, including the player's look-alike, populate an apartment, which is limited to 100residents. By continuously adding Miis and completing miscellaneous objectives, additional buildings, shops, and attractions throughout the island become available. These include food and clothing vendors, a concert hall for Miis to perform live music, a café, and other venues that Miis can occasionally visit in their own time. In-universe news broadcasts periodically occur to inform the player of events on the island.
Miis can autonomously form friendships or engage in sporadic conflict, the latter of which the player can indirectly remedy. A Mii can harbor romantic feelings for another Mii of the opposite gender and similar age, which can lead to dating and eventual marriage. Married couples can have children; once the child grows up, the player can either move them to Mii Apartments or dispatch them via the 3DS' StreetPass mechanic to appear on other players' islands.
Tomodachi Life has no definitive end condition. The player's primary objective is to continuously maintain each of their Miis' happiness, which is indicated by a personalized meter. Miis will randomly notify the player of a particular problem they have. These issues range from requesting food or clothing, soliciting relationship guidance, and asking to compete in simple minigames. Appeasing a Mii increases their happiness gauge, awarding the player with in-game currency usable for purchasing items. This currency is also obtained through daily donations from the Miis and selling valuables at a pawn shop. Each Mii has a level that goes up every time their personal happiness meter is completely filled, upon which the player gives them a present. The player can optionally eavesdrop on the Miis' dreams while they sleep at night.
Development and release
Tomodachi Life was developed by Nintendo SPD as a direct sequel to Tomodachi Collection (2009). Many of Tomodachi Collection's key developers returned to work on the sequel, known in Japan as Tomodachi Collection: New Life, including director Rytaro Takahashi. Eisaku Nakae, the main programmer of Collection, worked with programmers and designers to establish a clear directional foundation for New Life. This mentality was divergent from that employed during Collection's development, which was a less focused process. Producer Yoshio Sakamoto stated that a primary goal was to create "entertainment which is fun just by watching".
New Life's art direction was refined through trial-and-error. The team initially considered retaining the exact graphical style of Collection, but this was opposed by Shinya Takahashi, the General Manager of Nintendo SPD. He felt the game lacked a "next-generation" feel, prompting New Life's art director Mai Okamoto to reconsider her approach. The team, unclear as to what exactly "next-generation" visuals entailed, experimented with different art styles for approximately six months. They eventually decided on an aesthetic with a balance between enhanced graphics and intentional imperfections. In spite of the art style adjustments, Sakamoto was particular about retaining the Miis' robotic voices from Collection, deeming them integral to the series' identity and players' perception of the characters.
An "idea notebook" was created, allowing developers to freely propose gameplay concepts; over 5,500 ideas were penned in total. Developers held internal competitions to create the most humorous ideas. For instance, the respective teams behind each of the six songs featured in the game's concert hall all attempted to best each other in musical composition, which Takahashi stated became "particularly intense".
One gameplay mechanic introduced in New Life is the ability for married Miis to have children. Developers struggled in conceptualizing how precisely to convey Mii childbearing. Initial ideas included having the Miis lay eggs from which babies would hatch and having the mother's stomach gradually expand over time; the latter was widely opposed for being "a bit too graphic". In the final product, babies are automatically born. Another strong concern of some team members was the potential for the game to romantically pair two children, or a child and an adult, with one another. This was partially remedied with the addition of an "adult spray" item that is applied to underage romantic partners, physically converting them into an adult. New Life's StreetPass functionality, allowing child Miis who have grown up to visit others' islands, was conceived as a means for players to grow emotionally attached to their Miis. The development team incorporated an atmosphere of "familial love" to New Life. They hoped the title would inspire players to see their real-world interactions with friends and family in a more genuine, positive light through the Miis.
Localization
Nintendo had previously considered localizing Tomodachi Collection for Western markets. The plan was scrapped primarily because the voice synthesizer used for the Miis, having been originally built for Japanese, could not replicate the phonetic complexities of English. Sakamoto reportedly remained interested in the concept, believing localization could be revisited whenever more powerful hardware became available. For several years after, American and Japanese developers at Nintendo worked together to develop more advanced speech programs that could accommodate foreign languages. In late March 2014, Nintendo of Europe launched a survey containing multiple screenshots of what appeared to be localized versions of Tomodachi Collection: New Life in English, French, and Spanish, although an official worldwide release had yet to be confirmed.
Bill Trinen, the Vice President of Product and Player Experience for Nintendo of America, said that a key focus of localization was to elevate the game's appeal for those beyond Japan without sacrificing its core gameplay. Some cultural imagery native to Japan was adjusted; for example, a sumo wrestling minigame in the Japanese release was replaced with football in North America. Trinen recounted that determining how to market New Life to customers in North America through a "relatable cultural context" heavily guided this stage of localization, which took over a year. The Japanese word "tomodachi"—literally "friend"—was nevertheless retained in the overseas name to elicit intrigue and make itself distinct. Takahashi spoke of localization as requiring significant alterations to make "the [Miis] feel like real Western people". Such changes included replacing some of the Miis' body gestures with those found in foreign cultures, rendering local currencies, and extensively reviewing the translated dialogue to ensure it felt natural to speakers of other languages. Sakamoto hoped that the game would resonate with players in North America and Europe as it did with those in Japan, stating, "I honestly do not know if Tomodachi Life can be similarly accepted overseas ... however I believe that the emotion of caring for and loving others is universal."
Promotion A teaser trailer for a Tomodachi Collection follow-up was shown during a 3DS-centric press conference hosted by Satoru Iwata in 2011. On March11, 2013, Nintendo announced a sequel to Collection in a Japan-exclusive Nintendo Direct presentation; they also announced a special edition 3DS LL hardware bundle for the game. In another Direct on April3, 2013, Nintendo revealed more details on the 3DS sequel, titled Tomodachi Collection: New Life, including the ability to import Mii data from Collection to the sequel.
On April10, 2014, Nintendo released a dedicated Nintendo Direct presentation for Tomodachi Life to their YouTube channel, featuring Mii caricatures of Nintendo's staff, such as Bill Trinen, Reggie Fils-Aimé, and Iwata. Other Nintendo employees and fictional characters were used to demonstrate the gameplay mechanics, such as Eiji Aonuma, creator of The Legend of Zelda series, conversing with Princess Zelda. On the North American Tomodachi Life website, QR codes for pre-made Miis of celebrities such as Christina Aguilera and Shaquille O'Neal were displayed donning custom clothing. Nintendo of Australia collaborated with singer-songwriter Dami Im to promote the game, with videos featuring her playing Tomodachi Life with her personalized Mii released via YouTube.
Release On April18, 2013, Tomodachi Collection: New Life was released in Japan. It was released alongside a special edition Nintendo 3DSLL. On the same day, a booklet in the style of a fashion catalog, starring Miis wearing a variety of in-game clothing, was released as a promotional reward for Club Nintendo members.