This morning’s Nintendo Direct Mini presentation saw the announcement of a ton of great third-party releases coming to the Nintendo Switch. Titles includingOri and the Will of the Wisps,Monster Hunter Rise, and others will help flesh out Nintendo’s Switch release schedule in 2020 and 2021. One of those big announcements came as an exciting surprise. It’sRune Factory 5, the latest RPG/life-sim from developer Hakama.
It’s hard to believe that its been 8 years since the release ofRune Factory 4on the Nintendo 3DS. But Japanese Marvelous must have simply had other priorities. Regardless of how long it took, Marvelous and Hakama are ready to start talking aboutRune Factory 5now. And it’s clear that the time has been well spent.Rune Factory 5is near incomparable to its predecessors. It’s now fully using 3D graphics and is unique to its own in many other ways.
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To start, players inRune Factory 5will awaken on the beach of a mysterious island, their memory entirely gone. From there, they’ll start on an incredible adventure. They’ll join a band of peacekeeping rangers, explore the entirety of an island filled with fantastic people, monsters, and more, and build a life of their own. And on the other side of the equation, players will be able to farm, fish, andsettle down with a romantic partner.Rune Factorycovers a broad range of experiences.
One area ofRune Factory 5that attention is being drawn to is the game’s combat system.Rune Factory 5features a style of straight forwardaction-RPG combat, but it’s also going to have a new feature compared to previous games. InRune Factory 5, players will be able to perform combination attacks with their party members. If it worked inChrono Trigger, it’ll probably work inRune Factory 5.
But the most striking change is definitely the full 3D traversal. In fact, it conjures similar feelings tohowPokemon SwordandShieldtransformed the franchisefor the Nintendo Switch.Rune Factory 5players will be able to run around the game’s island setting, even using monsters that they tame to travel faster than usual.
The only bad news forNintendo Switchplayers is that, despite already waiting 8 years for a newRune Factorygame, they’ll have to wait a while longer yet.Rune Factory 5doesn’t have a firm release date yet, but it is tentatively planned to launch worldwide in 2021 following a spring launch in Japan. It’ll be the first mainRune Factorygame that isn’t released on a pure handheld console.
