Month: March 2022

They love each other, but they can’t be together, so they do what anybody would probably have done in this situation: escape to an unknown planet.

This is the story of Haven, a romantic space adventure about two lovers trying to stay together against all odds. Who are these two lovers, you ask? Well, with this Couple Update, the question just got more interesting.

Haven originally let you play as Yu, the hot-headed mechanic and Kay, the cautious biologist. This free update introduces two new characters: Yu, the hot-headed mechanic; and Kay, the cautious biologist. Which means you’ll now be able to play with Yu & Kay, Yu & Kay, or even Yu & Kay.

Still confused? Ok let’s clarify a bit: while Haven originally let you play as a heterosexual couple, you will now be able to play as a same-gender couple.

It could feel like a small change, but Haven being a game about the freedom to love whomever you want, we’re really happy to provide more ways for players to identify with our precious couple.

Whoever you chose to play, the main story won’t change, nor will the personality of the characters. What will change is their design, models, art, animations, quite a few lines, and of course, their voices, since the 80,000 lines of dialog have been entirely re-voiced by our amazing voice actors, Lexie Ann Kendrick (Kay) and Ryan Highley (Yu).

When we first started to work on this update, soon after the release, I was curious, as a writer, about how the original dialogues would translate for these two new couples. Will some of them sound odd? Unnatural? After all, I wrote Kay as a man, and Yu as a woman, didn’t I?

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that, pronouns and minor details aside, almost nothing had to be edited. Overall, the alchemy between the characters remained unaffected.

As if characters weren’t determined by their gender. As if men and women could have the same interests, the same thoughts, the same feelings.

Funny.

We hope you’re as excited as we were to discover or rediscover your favorite couple. Oink, for once, can’t wait to meet his two new moms. Or dads.

Haven Couple Update is available for free on PC, PlayStation 5 & 4,Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.

Pierre Corbinais

Hello everyone,

Haven is a game about the freedom to love whomever you want, and that’s why we’re particularly happy to bring this free Couple update to all platforms. You can now choose to play the game with the Yu and Kay you prefer: either a woman and a man, two women, or two men. Check the update trailer:

This update will not change the story arc for Haven, and you still play as Yu and Kay, but the game offers more options as to the composition of the couple. Haven can now represent love in a broader way!

This update is special to us. Originally, the concept for Haven featured 8 couples, with a diverse range of relationships. It became clear during production that we wouldn’t be able to reach our initial vision for the full cast of characters, so we focused on the two characters you know well. But right after the game launch, we went back to work on this update to add the alternate couples!

You can read more about the Update in two very exciting blog posts:

• One by our Creative Director Emeric Thoa for Sony Playstation: Read the blog post
• One by Haven’s Writer Pierre Corbinais on Xbox Wire: Read the blog post

We’re very happy to be able to provide the lovers’ story in two new ways that more players can identify with. We’re looking forward to seeing which Yu and Kay you will play, as you enjoy the two lovers’ adventures on planet Source (and catch up with Oink!).

As always, a big thank you for playing our games and your support,
The team at Game Bakers

Haven makes you play as Yu and Kay, a young couple who are not supposed to be together. While everything in the universe is trying to tear them apart, they keep fighting for the freedom to be in love.

In Haven’s first version of the game, Yu and Kay are a young man and women. But one of the key theme of Haven has always been about “being free to love who you want”. Initially, our game concept featured 8 couples, with some of them being gay and lesbian. It was a very natural and obvious way to go with such a theme.

But production constraints made us cut all these characters and refocus the story and the game over two characters only. This allowed us to craft a very unique and moving story about two persons in love. Two personalities, two lives tangled with each other that players would come to know and fall in love with during the game.

After Haven released last year, we took some time to work on a unique update that would better support the game’s theme: you can now choose to play the game with the lovers you want. Either a woman and a man, two women or two men.

This is a fantastic update that lets you play the game with the same couple, Yu and Kay, but offers you the choice for them to be two men or two women. Let’s make things clear though: this is not a new story arc and the new couples do not have gameplay specificities. This is “just” a way to allow more people to enjoy Haven in a way that represents them better. We are very proud to make Haven represent love in a broader way!

You might have noticed that Kay as a woman and Yu as a man look very similar to their opposed gender versions. There are two reasons for that: first they are the same characters in the story, they share the same backstory and life. And second, for technical reasons, we had to keep the same body size, hairstyle and body shape.

This update may seem like a small addition but it actually took us more than eight months of hard work. We had to design and create new 3D models, but also redraw all the 2D assets in the game the dialog portraits, the loading screens, the key illustrations, some contents in the endings… The only thing that wasn’t redone is the opening animation, which plays before the couple choice.

We also made sure the dialogs were correct with each couple. This means supporting new translations in all 8 languages (2 new translations, one if Kay is a woman and one if Yu is a man), as well as changing and recording some lines that had some kind of explicit or implicit gender in English (like if Yu says “Mister” to Kay… that doesn’t work with a woman anymore). And we re-recorded all the dialogs of the game with two new actors, Lexie Ann Kendrick and Ryan Highley.

When you make a game over many years of development, there’s always things that you wish you had done differently. Players sometimes ask us “why can’t I choose the gender of my characters in Haven?”, but at the time we could never have made that feature. Especially as it’s the story of Yu and Kay, unique characters crafted with strong intentions. But a year after the original release, we were able to make that very special addition to the game, and we hope many new players will be able to meet Yu and Kay ! (and Oink)