Add some Steam to the factory

Fantasy farmers will have a new way to mingle and mine in Rune Factory 5 soon. XSEED and Marvelous confirm today that Rune Factory 5 is getting a PC port on July 13.

The latest entry in the Rune Factory series launched earlier this year as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. The Steam version looks to be a similar offering. It's $59.99 for the standard edition (though it's currently on a pre-launch 15% discount) or $69.99 for the Digital Deluxe, which includes the Rune Factory 4 marriage candidates outfit set. A??ny pre-order also nets two cosmetic outfits and a New Ranger Care Package of items in-game.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Edy6Bx_G8

Farming up a storm

If you're new to Rune Factory, it runs in a similar vein to Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. The key difference is that Rune Factory puts a bit more of a focus on combat and exploring d?ungeons than the actual farming??.

Depending on what you're looking for, that can be a positive or negative. In our review of the Switch launch, Rune Factory 5 seemed to?? be playing the hits, while not necessarily winning over new hearts thanks to falling into some familiar pit??falls. Things can get repetitive and basic at times too.

What a PC port might offer is a performance boost, which some might welcome. All-in-all, I was a big fan of Rune Factory 4 but ?stayed away from the next entry after hearing some early impressions of it. I'm hopeful the Steam version gives it enoug??h of a boost to put it back on my radar.

Rune Factory 5 launches for PC via Steam on July 13, 2022.

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PAX premiere for Marvelous' next big release

As we roll out of the cold, cold, winter, we find show season is already fast approaching. XSEED Games, along with its?? parent company Marvelous, is already getting in gear for the first big event of the year, PAX East 2022, which emanates from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center one week from? today.

XSEED has offered up info on three of its biggest titles that will be on show at the trade event. First and foremost, day one of PAX East will see the unveiling of brand new title Deadcraft, a mysterious survival adventure set within a post-apocalyptic soc??iety. Marvelous has kept details for this particu??lar project under wraps for some months now, but attendees and viewers will be able to check out the intriguing new title in action as soon as PAX opens its doors.

//youtu.be/5tid917AfcM

Elsewhere at the show, Froach will also be showing off PC sequel Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories. This "story exploration" game will see the protagonist, melon factory worker Honeydew, explore the corrupt 'berg of Hog Town, where melons are outlawed. I swear, I'm just reading the blurb. Honeydew will meet new friends and enemies, confront the Cavity Crew... speak with the fearsome Kitten King... All set to... a jazzy, low-fi soundtrack... Look, let's just wai?t and se?e, shall we?

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq1B5qLpL0k

Voracious Games' deckbuilder Potionomics will also be on show, affording PAX attendees the opportunity to check out its fun-sounding blend of fantasy spell brewing an????????????????????????????d entrepreneurial management. Potionomics will task players w??ith creating the best and most effective mystical mixes, before using their savvy sales skills to corner the market on magic retail. ??Expected to launch this fall on PC, Potionomics looks to be a particularly unique take on the typical management sim.

Finally, XSEED will have its most recent release, Rune Factory 5, also in attendance on the PAX show floor. Available right now on Nintendo Switch, you can read more info about this latest entry in the long-running farming/life simulator in this review from our own CJ Andriessen.

PAX East 2022 will take place at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center b?etween April 21-24.

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Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

Last month, I posted a preview of Rune Factory 5 deta??iling its first two hours and the opening dungeon. Mostly, I complained about how that just isn't enough time to really ??get a feel for how a game of this nature is going to be. This is a franchise where you can easily put more than 100 hours into a single game without seeing everything it has to offer.

I needed more than two hours. Thankfully, ?after that preview went up, I got to spend the next several weeks immersing myself in this world. That's more than enough time to really dig into the experience and unearth the good and the bad buried within.

Rune Factory 5 (Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Hakama Inc.
Publisher: Xseed Games
Released: March 22, 2022
MSRP: $59.99

If you’re tired of role-playing games featuring a protagonist with a crippling case of amnesia, I have bad news for you. The series staple trope is back with a vengeance in Rune Factory 5, which sees players exploring dungeons and slaying monsters as they try to save the world, get the guy or girl, and maybe build up an agricultural empire. The blonde-headed hero of this tale comes to the quaint town of Rigbarth following a monster attack in the woods. They can’t remember who they are or what their deal is, but it takes no time at all to find out ??that your hero is an Earthmate. Like with other games in the series, this means they have a special connection to nature and dragons, and stand as Rigbarth’s only hope in saving the town and the kingdom at large from a nefarious villain.

Someone or something is stealing rune power from the world, and that is throwing nature into disarray. As the hero of this tale, it’s up to you to figure out who’s behind the madnes?s. But hey, no rush or anything. Saving the day can sit on the back burner as you grow level-10 tomatoes or try to catch that rare monster you so desperately need for your stables.

That’s because Rune Factory 5 employs an open-ended structure where you’re free to take the game at your own pace. If you don’t want to do some dungeon diving, you don’t have to. Those dungeons ain’t going anywhere, so you might as well take your sweet time and get yourself prepared for the challenge ahead by engaging in the wide array of side activities. From growing? crops to catching monsters to crafting new tools and armor, there are very few doldrum days in the ??town of Rigbarth.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq1B5qLpL0k

For veterans of the series, or even those hopping over for the first time from Story of Seasons or one of the other farming sims out there, none of this will be a surprise. The farming genre is very much about making your own schedule. If you’re coming into this game cold turkey, however, you might inadvertently go about proceeding through Rune Factory 5 in a less than ideal way. That’s because there’s nothing here that says you need to properly divide your time between farming and fighting, and it is possible to blow through most of the story before you ever see the first day of summer. Obviously, that’s not the ideal way to play the game. But it is a possibility, especially if you’re the type who likes to focus on a more structured game experience rather than an open-ended one. Your first few days in Rigbarth feature a slew of short tutorials that teach you about the many dif??ferent aspects of the game. But with so much knowledge thrown out in such a short time, it’s really up to the player to sift through it and figure things out. And there is a lot to figure out here.

One of the first things you should learn in Rune Factory 5 is how to level up your skills. The good thing is, nearly everything in this game contributes to character growth. Even something as simple as walking or going to sleep at the end of the day will help you skill up. And those skills carry real results. Bathing at the bathhouse, for instance, is a skill that will increase your health points, rune points (action points), and vitality the more you do it. If you w??ant to see greater benefits from love spells, you’ll need to increase your love skill. Fishing, chopping wood, talking to neighbors, watering crops, tending ??to your monster livestock, and opening treasure chests are just some of the everyday activities you’ll perform that’ll slowly ready your hero for the task at hand.

Building up your skills outside of battle will ultimately aid you when you do decide to dive into some dungeons. With increased health points and rune points, you’re more likely to survive the swarms of monsters awaiting you. However, as I found out the first couple of days of playing the game, even if you neglect all your activities outside of combat, you’re probably not going to have too much trouble getting through Rune Factory 5.

The dungeon-crawling side of Rune Factory 5 is extremely basic in its execution. The one-button combo combat doesn’t lend itself to much experimentation, and when you’re not smacking down one or two foes with a succession of strikes, you’ll likely be dodging attacks coming at you from off-camera. Unlike most of the games in the franchise, Rune Factory 5 does not have a fixed camera. Its position to the main character is ??close enough that it can be easy to take hits from enemies?? you can’t even see. And some of these hits can kill you in one shot. It’s annoying, but it's workable, which is more than I can say about the auto-targeting system.

Rune Factory 5 just might have the worst auto-targeting system I have ever experienced. Truly awful, it is pretty unpredictable in not only which enemy it will target initially, but also which one it’ll shift to if you hit the right control stick. Will I target the monster in the center of my screen or the one closest to me? It’s honestly a crapshoot. I had rooms where I’d hit the auto-target button and it would lock onto a monster clear on the other side of the room with plenty of creatures standing between us. I only died a couple of times playing through the game–and Rune Factory 5 has a generous save system that�??�ll let you skirt death if you don’t mind restarting–but nearly all of those deaths can be attributed to t?he targeting system’s failure to focus on the appropriate enemy.

Equally as annoying in battle is what I'll call the SEED savior system. For much of your adventure, your character is a member of SEED. The organization is responsible for investigating what’s happening with the rune energy as well as protecting Rigbarth from monster attacks. In the back corner of the Rig?barth SEED Outpost, a nondescript SEED officer stands at the ready. If you talk to them before you go exploring, they’ll agree to come aid you should you need their help. This means if you’re stricken with a status effect like sleep, they’ll pop in and restore you. They’ll also come to your aid if your health falls too low, and this is where I have a problem.

Because this SEED recruit has a lengthy recharge between rescues, I want to do my best to hold off the need for their aid until the situation is dire. However, they will pop in anytime my health falls below a certain point. And it’s not even a low point like I’m sitting there with only three health points remaining. I can still have a decent measure of HP left, but if it’s below this threshold, they’ll barge in. Not only is it annoying to lose ?this last-second save when I don’t need it, but the unpredictability of their arrival can actual?ly throw me off my rhythm, leading to me taking some damage I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

These two elements of combat can combine for a particularly frustrating experience, especially when playing on a harder difficulty level. But that’s pretty much the only way to see a consistent challenge from the game because most everything here doesn’t pose much of a threat. The dungeon bos??ses are big and bold, but there isn’t much variety between them. If you’ve recruited monsters or townsfolk to figh?t on your side, you can easily just let them do all the work while you lob spells at the beast from afar.

It’s actually kind of insane how much damage recruited monsters will do as they level up, and they can level up quite quickly. There is one dungeon in the game where I was joined by the first three monsters I captured. At the beginning of it, they barely posed a threat. By the end, they were doing more damage individually than I was with my strongest weapon. Inviting monsters and townsfolk along on your quest is obviously encouraged by the game’s design—and a central element in Rune Factory 5’s romantic ventures—but it pretty much breaks the combat, especial??ly in those boss battles.

Because of this, as well as the repetitive nature of the dungeons and their far-too-simplistic puzzles, I didn’t really enjoy the combat half of this game. The hack ’n�?slash action works decently enough, but most battles just boiled down to me repeatedly dodging offscreen attacks and healing my companions as they took a brunt of the damage. Suffice to say, I had a better time with the farming sim half of the Rune Factory equa?tion here, but even that side has its issues.

First and foremost, this is not really a pretty game. There is some interesting art direction, namely in the boss character designs and a few spots on the overworld map, but everything here looks a few generations old. There’s one corridor y??ou’ll frequent on the northeast side of Rigbarth that honestly looks like it fell out of an early bargain bin Dreamcast game. The framerate never seems to hit a consistent 30 fps and will routinely take a dive every time you walk through a door. Elements in the world can take a long time to render in and it can sometimes feel as though the game is about to crash, but thankfully, that never happened with me. The worst error I ran into during my playthrough was when everyone in town started talking about a hurricane that was supposed to arrive tomorrow and it didn’t get there until two days later.

Rigbarth itself is pretty underwhelming. It feels as though the developers had a few ideas they wanted for this little burg but couldn’t figure out how to connect them in a natural way. The tow?n is sparse and spread out with most of it remaining pretty dead for a good chunk of the calendar year. Special events and holidays will bring focus to certain parts of town, but these too are underwhelming. Artistically, most? holidays don’t do anything more than paper the screen with confetti as the townsfolk stand around in a location outside their normal haunts for a dozen or so hours. Occasionally, you’ll have a mini-game or contest that’ll eat up about 30 seconds of your time. I was really disappointed when I reached my first Beach Day expecting some type of fun in the sun. Sadly, nobody was playing volleyball or surfing or any kind of activity that would require a unique animation. Instead, they just stood or sat around until the sun went down.

As disappointing as some of these holidays can be, it is worth getting out there and exploring Rigbarth every day as you might come across a unique cutscene that’ll bring you closer to the cast. The denizens of the town are a real bunch of winners in Rune Factory 5 and I have to complement the localization team for doing such a good job giving these characters some unique and dynamic personalities. One thing the game does well is it really gets you to learn about the people who populate this village, with little scenes that play out from time to time that reveal a bit more about each of them. If you’re ever arou??nd town and see a big red dot on the map, it’s marking the spot that’ll either advance the story or advance your relationship with the townsfolk.

The marriage candidates this time around are a pretty good bunch too, though you may want to hold off pursuing a partner until you’ve cleared a good chunk of the dungeons. As you advance through the story, more characters will arrive in town and some of them are better marriage material than those who initially call Rigbarth home. Getting to know these characters and beginning your romantic pursuits provides what I think are the best moments of the whole game. In fact, this is the first time I've played a game with a marriage option where I didn't make an immediate beeline for my initial crush. I played the field a bit and the experience was all the better. Eventually, I settled on settling down with Reinhard, though it was a toss-up between him and wolf-man Murakumo. Rune Factory 5 is the first game in the series to include same-sex marriage, and you b??etter believe I gayed it up whenever possible.

Feel free to take as much time as possible to meet your mate because you have a long road ahead of you. Each day in Rune Factory 5 takes more than 30 minutes to get through, which means you’re realistically looking at a 60- to 70-hour playtime to make it through a single calendar year. Obviously, that much time on the clock is good when you want to explore a dungeon or tend to your farm. However, on days where you’re supposed to stay up until a certain time?? to advance the story, it can be mind-numbingly slow.

The best way to pass the time on the days like this is with farming. Growing crops and tending to fields works as well here as it has in any other Rune Factory game. There is a lot for players to keep track of, including soil quality and seed level, but you’ll learn best by doing. Your farming area will expand as you advance through the story, unlocking farm dragons where you can keep the monsters you recruit. Those monsters can be assigned to farm duties once you hit a certain relationship threshold with them, making it pretty easy to keep an efficient farm running. Just make sure you have enough fodder to feed them, something the game really doesn’t stress as much as it? should.

If it sounds like I’ve hammered down too much on how little information the game gives you, it’s because I believe Rune Factory 5 is inadequate in providing the necessary knowledge to the player. The little bits of info you can access are too sparse and some of the requests you take from villagers don’t give enough information for new players or those, like me, who may need a refresher on everything after not playing a Rune Factory game for nearly a decade. Like I said above, there is a lot to keep in mind here with all the different aspects of farming, fishing, fighting, and raising monsters, and I just wish the game included a more detailed glossary to assist players who may need some extra ?help.

I also wi??sh this game didn’t have so many weird and outdated design choices. Like, at the SEED Outpost, there is a magical talking box doll named Eliza who you can speak to when you want to schedule festivals for the town or change the game’s difficulty. With those types of options, you’d think Eliza would also be capable of handling name changes and giving you information on your monsters. But that isn’t the case. Instead, the developers constructed a house in the town and created two NPCs whose sole existence is to perform those two tasks. That just seems like a waste of time, space, and money for something that could have easily been taken care of by the magical talking box.

That’s just one example, but there are a lot of elements I came across throughout my adventure that I just wish would have been given more time and thought before the developers settled on the design they did. I’m talking about things like furniture placement lacking a grid for precise placement or recipe bread really re?stricting how many recipes players can learn every day or having to craft several different cooking surfaces to account for all the different cooking styles instead of just repeatedly expanding the same one. The L pocket, which gives you quick access to your bag, is not nearly as intuitive as it could be, and while time does stop when searching through your things, you may find yourself scrolling relentlessly to find the one item you’re looking for.

There’s more, but I don’t want to bog down this already too-long review with nitpicking. If you’ve read through what I’ve written and are coming away with the idea that I don’t like this game, that’s not the case. I do like Rune Factory 5. ?It has a great cast, a wealth of activities, and much of the farm sim experience I love. But every time I found myself smitten with the game, something would come along to point out just how underwhelming it i?s as a whole.

For those who are already fans of the Rune Factory series, I imagine any complaints I’ve listed above might be easy to overlook. For everyone else, you may want to try your hand at a previous entry in the franchise to see if you even like Rune Factory’s combination of farming and f??ighting before giving this one?? a go.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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It'll probably still be better than Rocky V

There was a brief period of time where it looked as though the world might never see another Rune Factory game. Neverland, the developer of the popular spinoff series, declared bankruptcy in 2013 following the release of Rune Factory 4 for the Nintendo 3DS. In fact, it would be nearly six years before we got any news on a continuation of the franchise when developer Marvelous announced Rune Factory 5 was in development for Nintendo Switch. Three years and some chang??e later, the game is about ready to hit store shelves in North America, but you? may want to temper your expectations.

Rune Factory 5 takes place in the town of Rigbarth, where your amnesiac hero is welcomed to join the team known as SEED until they get their memory back. SEED is responsible for the town’s protection, and as a soldier of SEED, it’ll be up to you to defeat monsters and complete quests for townsfolk while also growing crops and making friends with the locals. It’s everything you’ve come to expect from the Rune Factory series, just with more were-people and the curious feeling that Marvelous and Xseed Games are about to rele??ase another farming game with? slipshod production values.

Last year, the developer released Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town as part of the 25th-anniversary celebration of the Bokujō Monogatari franchise. While it was extensively patched following its release, the game at launch was something of a letdown in a variety of ways. Two hours with Rune Factory 5, and I can’t help ?but shake the feeling we have another? game that’ll be a lot better after it’s seen a couple of updates, even if I know not everything can or will be fixed.

And let me just make something clear: I am well aware that the worst part of any Rune Factory or Story of Seasons game is its opening two hours. Nothing exciting happens in these games in that timeframe. For the most part, that’s the amount of time it takes for the game to teach players the basics while also having them complete menial tasks like “put a turnip in the shipping box�?or “introduce yourself to everyone in town.�?Rune Factory 5 doesn’t rock the boat in this regard, as the opening two hours are as slow and monoton??ous as any prior game in the series.

Because I’m restricted to talking about these opening hours only, I don’t really have a lot of nice things to say about it. Character movement is pretty loose, villagers haven’t had a chance to make any sort of an impact beyond their opening introductions, the farming is still in its elementary stages, and I’m still getting used to the controls and menus, which unfortunately are not as intuitive as they should be. Switching between your different farming tools requires too many button press?es, though maybe I just haven’t figured out a shortcut for everything yet.

Combat is, at the moment, nothing more than a simple one-button hack’n’slash. It works fine for what it is, especially given the ease of the game's first dungeon, but far more interesting is the potential of the rune actions. These are special abilities that can supplement your standard attacks. Unfortunately, I only gained access to one of these rune actions in the first two hours and it was for a style of sword I chose not to equip. If you have played any past Rune Factory game–or paid attention to the trailers issued by Xseed in the build-up to this game–you know there is much more to the combat. Unfortunately, that's all beyond what I'm? allowed to talk about here.

What I can talk about, however, is just how chintzy everything feels here. The first Rune Factory for consoles, Rune Factory: Frontier for the Nintendo Wii, had its issues, but it also had a world that felt authentic with little details that added to its charm and warmth. Rigbarth lacks any sense of warmth or charm. Despite its bright colors and heavy strokes of pink, it feels more like a set than a place that's lived in. L??ooking beyond the low-quality textures t?hat are found all over the place, I'm just not vibing with how everything was put together here. It feels very first draft in its design. There are framerate issues, but they’re not as bad as what I’ve seen made out on social media with the original Japanese release.

But that’s just my feeling after the first two hours, which, as I stated above, I am already aware are the worst hours of any Rune Factory game. There is a great deal left ahead of me with more monsters to defeat, more crops to grow, and more guys to pursue romantically. Plus, there’s the whole mystery of what my character’s deal is. H?opefully, the next several dozen hours I’ll be spending with it will have me looking at the game in a better light. And if you need some sort of positivity to take from this impression, know?? that I'm really digging the music I've heard so far.

Rune Factory 5 ?releases in North America on March 22, 2022, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.

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Tending crops, exploring dungeons, and even tying the knot

Rune Factory 5 is making its way to North America this year, with more fantasy friends and farming activities in tow. Ahead of the March 22 release date, X??SEED and Marvelous put out a story trailer today, highlight??ing what exactly you'll be doing in the action RPG.

If you're unfamiliar with Rune Factory, it's an offshoot of the Story of Seasons (or Harvest Moon) franchise. While that series has split in its own way and tends to be more about the farming, Rune Factory generally incorporates more action and RPG elements into the mix. There are dungeons to explore and enemies to fight, alongside ??the fields you'??????????????????????????ll be tending to.

Of course, there are still the aspects of these slice-of-life games you'd want. Aside from tending to crops and livestock, you can also get to know the townsfolk and help build the town up to new heights. And, as shown in the trailer, you can even get married!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txpu7vGf-lI

I got hooked on Rune Factory 4 when it arrived on the Nintendo 3DS, and that ended up rekindling a love for the farming life sim that roared into a blaze with Stardew Valley. And while the latter has certainly become the dominant force in the farming-focused side of the genre, I'm actually pretty interested in Rune Factory 5 for where the series differs. Some lighthearted action RPG tossed into the fold, alon??gside its colorful aesthetic and this entry's leap into?? fully 3D worlds, has me interested.

Though it's already out in Japan, North American Nintendo Switch owners will get their chance to cultivate crops and relationships in a few months. Rune Factory 5 is set to launch on March 22, 2022.

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22 is also the number of frames per second this game appears to be running at

There were so many announcements in today's Nintendo Direct that it's easy to forget everything that was shown off. I mean, when you end with Bayonetta 3, that'll pretty much dominate all sectors of your brain for the next few hours. However, many other upcoming titles also got their moment in the spotlight during the presentation, and that includes Rune Factory 5. The next entry in the beloved farm'n'fight series has been a few years in the making, but thankfully, there are only a few more months fans in North America will have to wait to get their hands on it. As revealed today, the Rune Factory 5 release date is March 22, 2022.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z2xyRBxzwc

Rune Factory 5 will cast players in the role of an amnesiac who's recruited to help protect the land from monsters as a member of SEED. Like with past Rune Factory games, players will split their time between managing their farm, fighting monsters, and wooing one of the 12 available marriage candidates. For the first time in the series, Rune Factory 5 will inc?lude a local co-op option fo??r its cooking gameplay.

If you want to find out more about the localization process for the game, Xseed has started a localization blog over on its website. Rune Factory 5 will launch in North American next year exclusively for Nintendo Switch, but i??f history is any indication, I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up on PC before the end of 2022.

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More farming to go around

Xseed Games had a couple of announcements tucked away in Sunday's Future Games Show. The biggest of which is probably the confirmation that the (as of right now) Switch-exclusive Rune Factory 5 will arrive in North America in early 2022. The game launched last month in Japan, and unlike this year's Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, it doesn't seem like? there is any rush to get this over to ou?r shores.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7NvYbO79k

That was not the only Rune Factory news to be had in the show. It was also confirmed Rune Factory 4 Special is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC this fall.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRL-2jdcHuQ

On top of that, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is jumping over to PS4 and Xbox O?ne this fall as well.

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Ee-i-ee-i-oh

During the Japanese edition of yesterday's Nintendo Direct Mini, publisher Marvelous finally revealed a release date for Rune Factory 5 in?? Japan. The horticultural seq??uel will launch on Nintendo Switch on May 20, 2021, with a western release to follow sometime later in the year.

Alongside the new trailer, Marvelous also announced a special Rune Factory 5 Premium Edition. Retailing for ¥9,980, (or roughly $95 USD), this edition includes a copy of Rune Factory 5, a DLC bundle featuring costumes from Rune Factory 4, a 60-page artbook packed full of character and scenery illustrations, and a 15-track OST C?D??, all housed in exclusive packaging.

Marvelous is yet to announce whether this set w??ill be released in the west.

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Seriously, these colors are bright

It has been more than a year since we first got word that Rune Factory 5 was in development ??for Nint??endo Switch, and during today's Partner Mini Direct, we were given our first look at the 2021 title. All the staples of the spin-off series are here. There are still crops to grow, monsters to fight, fish to catch, and partners to woo. 

In Rune Factory 5, you play as an amnesiac who's asked to become a peacekeeping ranger and tasked with keeping the local town safe from the various monsters that roam the expansive world. You can tame these monsters, or team up with the townies to take them down. In one of the features new to Rune Factory 5, you'll be able to perform combo attacks with your allies. ??According to a press release from Xseed, that's just one of the new features in s??tore for players.

Rune Factory 5 will launch exclusively for Nintendo Switch next year with Japan g??ettin?g its hands on it first next Spring.

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Farm Friends

Japanese publisher Marvelous delivered upon its promise to offer up more info on its upcoming fantasy sequel Rune Factory 5 yesterday, dropping a short trailer for the game,?? first announce??d way back in February of this year.

While the new video doesn't feature any gameplay footage, it does show off several designs for some of the wild creatures players will encounter during their time spent cultivating crops and exploring the countryside. The trailer ends with the silhouetted figures of Rune Factory 5's lead male and f?emale prot??agonist, but I guess you'll have to wait a bit longer to see them in the flesh, so to speak.

Also noted, players with save data from the incoming Rune Factory 4 Special will be able to unlock a character crossover in Rune Factory 5. So that's a fun bonus. Rune Factory 5 is scheduled for release o??n Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Rune Factory 5 protagonist silhouettes revealed [Siliconera]

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Sowing the seeds of love

Marvelous' announcement of Rune Factory 5 earlier this year came as quite a happy surprise fo?r the fantasy farming's fanbase. Still, with a Japanese release set for 2020, and no lockdown on a western launch just yet, ??there's still quite a lot about this particular sequel that's shrouded in mystery.

Hopefully, things will be made a little clearer this week, as the publisher has announced that the fourth Rune Factory 4 Special live stream - scheduled take place in just a couple of days time - will offer new information of the fifth mainline entry in this niche series. Aside from whatever tidbits Marvelous have to offer us on Rune Factory 5, the stream will also feature news on the upcoming Switch remake Rune Factory 4 Special.

If you want to check the stream out for yourself, then you should tune into Marvelous' Japanese YouTube channel on July 25 at 20:00 JST (which is 12:00 BST / 04:00 PT / 07:00 ET.) Incidentally, this is also the exact same time that Sega will be holding their Project Sakura Wars stream. So you're gonna have to pick your poison.

Rune Factory 5 is currently in development for a 2020 release in Japan. Rune Factory 4 Special will launch on Nintendo Switch in Japan July 25, with a western release to follow lat?er this year.

New details on Rune Fa?ctory 5 to be rev??ealed July 25 [DualShockers]

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The post Incoming Rune Fact?ory 5 li?ve stream will harvest new info appeared first on Destructoid.

Time of the Season

It was quite the surprise for Rune Factory fans when they received news of a new sequel during February's Nintendo Direct presentation.? But it seems that budding fantasy farmers shouldn't quite get the tools out of the shed just yet, as this new entry is still some time away.

During a recent financial results briefing, publisher Marvelous noted that Rune Factory 5 will not see launch, even in its home territory ?of Japan, at least until the next financial year, which begins April 2020. Even then, there has been no official localisation announcement, so western fans might have to wait longer still for th??e new game to cross the pond, if at all.

At least the Rune Factory fellowship can take heart that there is a new title in development, even if we could be well over a year away from its release. Rune Factory 5 is currently in development. In the meantime, Rune Factory 4 Special will ?release for Nintendo Switch worldwide later in 2019.

Rune Factory 5 not due out before April 2020 [Gematsu]

The post Rune Factory 5 won’t be ready for harvest until at least April 2020 appeared first on Destructoid.

Save data will unlock special goodies

During a recent live stream, Rune Factory 5 publisher Marvelous! revealed that a bonus will await players who jump into the fantasy farming title with save game data from the upcoming remaster Rune Factory 4 Special.

Unfortunately no further information was forthcoming, other than the bonus would be "a really good thing". So unsurprisingly they didn't say "This bonus will be proper awful" or anything like that. Marvelous! also recently revealed a limited edition set for Rune Factory 4 Special, although there is still no word as to whether th??is "Memorial Box" will be headed ??west.

Rune Factory 5 will be the first mainline series sequel in some eight years. No doubt fans will be eagerly awaiting its arrival on Nintendo Switch, scheduled for sometime in 2020. In the meantime, Rune Factory 4 Special launches in Japan July 25, with North America and Europe to follow l??ater this y??ear.

Rune Factory 5 will include save data bonuses [Gematsu]

The post Rune Factory 5 will feature a mystery bonus for Rune Factory 4 Special player??s appeared first on Destructoid.

Farming and Families

[Update: Rune Factory 4 Special will launch in Japan July 25. Rune Factory 5 will launch in Japan in 2020. No w??estern dates have been confirmed?? as of yet.]

During today's Nintendo Direct presentation, Marvelous! announced two editions of the fantasy farming title, Rune Factory - a remaster and a brand ??new entry - are headed to Nintendo Switch.

Rune Factory 4 Special is a remastered version of the 2012 3DS title. Journey forth, harvest your crops, maybe even meet someone special? It was also announced that an all-new entry, Rune Factory 5 is currently in development for the hybrid console. This is great news for franchise fans?, who've been waiting for quite some time for a sequel?, to say the least.

Rune Factory 4 Special is coming to Nintendo Switch later in 2019.

The post Run?e Factory 4 Special and Rune Factory 5 are coming to Nintendo Switch appeared first on Destructoid.