In Haven 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 fight for the freedom to be in love.
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. You can now choose to play the game with the couple of lovers you prefer: either a woman and a man, two women, or two men.
This update will not change the story arc for Haven, 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.
Looking at the new Yu and Kay, you will notice that Kay and Yu look very similar across all playable versions. There are two reasons for that: first, they are the same characters in the story, they have the same personality, backstory, and life. And second, for technical reasons, we had to keep the same body size, hairstyle, and body shape.
Originally, the concept for Haven featured eight 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 two characters only. The decision was tough to make, but it allowed us to craft a very unique and moving story about Yu and Kay.
But right after the game release, we began working on the Couple’s Update. The update meant hitting the quality bar that was established when we initially launched Haven, and to do that we created new 3D models and redrew all of the characters’ 2D assets in the game. The only thing that hasn’t been redone is the opening animation, before you choose which versions of Kay and Yu to play as.
Our new renditions of Kay and Yu are voiced by two fantastic actors: Lexie Ann Kendrick and Ryan Highley, gave life to the characters across all 80,000 lines of dialog in the game. We’ve also made sure the written dialog is right for each couple across the 8 languages Haven is available in, and lines with explicit or implicit gender references have been modified to appropriately reflect your selected characters (if Yu says “Mister” to Kay… that doesn’t work with a woman anymore).
The story of Yu and Kay is that of two personalities, two lives tangled with each other, that players would come to know and fall in love with during the game, and we’ve been asked many times “Will I be able to choose the gender of my characters in Haven?”. We’re very proud to be able to provide the lovers’ story in two new ways that more players can identify with.
We hope many new players will feel like meeting their favorite version of Yu and Kay! (and Oink) and enjoy the two lovers’ adventures on planet Source.
Check the update in the game, it’s available for free on PS4 and PS5 from today.