The upcoming farming sim "Harvestella" from Square Enix will allow users to select their gender in the character creator.

This was first revealed a few weeks ago when the developer released a screenshot of the character creator on Twitter. That screenshot showed the standard hair and eye colors, as well as separate pronoun and body options. The gender choices in particular stand out, and now Harvestella's producers are offering further insight into the decisions behind them.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Daisuke Taka said that adding more pronoun options to Harvestella was a natural decision, "I think it's perfectly normal these days to include non-binary gender choices. The recognition of gender non-conforming people is becoming much more common, so we felt it was important to reflect this in the game and show that all players are welcome at Harvestella."

Taka added, "There is no major impact on the game other than the pronoun change, but we hope this means that everyone will feel included." He continued that Harvestella is designed to be a game "for everyone" and that "using gender-neutral pronouns is a relatively small effort, but the positive impact is significant."

Specific non-binary options in character creators are still few. With more creators leaning toward "body type" rather than gender, and with so much dialogue being neutralized, it is pleasing to see that Square Enix is going out of its way to include a variety of pronouns. If it doesn't matter to you, it certainly matters to someone else, and as Taka said, its impact on those it doesn't affect is minimal.