Fire Emblem Fates: Nintendo removes controversial 'gay conversion' subplot from upcoming 3DS game

The plot involved the player spiking the drink of a character who is attracted to women, making her fall in love with him

A man plays on a Nintendo 3DS at an event in Tokyo (YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images)

A controversial scene in a Japanese videogame that some claim depicts a 'drugging' and 'gay conversion' has been cut from the upcoming western version, Nintendo has announced.

The game, Fire Emblem Fates, a tactical roleplaying game for the Nintendo 3DS, allows players to form romantic relationships between their character and others, even letting them marry and have children.

Being able to marry other characters in a game is nothing new, but Fire Emblem Fates has gained some unwelcome attention due to a plotline involving Soleil, a lesbian character who gets flustered around women she finds attractive.

As the player builds a relationship with Soleil, they have the option to spike her drink with a 'magic powder' which makes her see women as men and vice versa, in an effort to make her more comfortable around women.

Due to the effects of the powder, she falls in love with the main character, wrongly believing him to be a woman.

The spell wears off, but she still ends up proposing to him, saying her love has not gone away even though she now realises he's a man.

The plot received criticism after some saw it as an endorsement of drink spiking and 'conversion therapy' - the name given to harmful pseudoscientific treatments often given by religious groups that claim to offer a 'cure' for homosexuality.

The Soleil subplot is included in the Japanese version of the game, which was released in June last year, but in a statement to Nintendo World Report, Nintendo confirmed that it would be removed from the upcoming European and US versions.

A representative for the company told the website: "In the version of the game that ships in the US and Europe, there is no expression which might be considered as gay conversion or drugging that occurs between characters."