Shiro Maekawa, who is the main director of the Rune Factory series, spoke with Japanese gaming site 4Gamer about the new Rune Factory game they are currently working on, which is not a numbered title. He also mentioned that the team will eventually make Rune Factory 6, but it’s not currently in development. Mr. Maekawa explained to the site that the new Rune Factory game, which has already been confirmed, will focus on “protecting the three pillars of the Rune Factory series: ‘adventure’, ‘life’ and ‘love’.” and although it will be a new game, it will not abandon those basic principles of the series. The team is currently developing Rune Factory 3 Special and this new game.
Why are you currently doing, while maybe not a ‘spin-off’, at least a game that isn’t part of a numbered series?
There are thoughts of “It’s about time we took big steps forward in the series.” We’ve touched on it before, but Rune Factory really tweaked its formula with the third entry. In reality since then the games generally use Rune Factory 3 as a base, but in order for players to experience a new adventure in the next numbered games, we can’t just continue with it.
Rune Factory 3 is now 13 years old, and including that game, since then it’s been 3. Thinking like that, it would be hard to create something new by simply continuing.
Exactly! Of course, we plan to develop Rune Factory 6 in the future, but for that to happen we will need to revisit the previous games and think about what big changes need to be made. Having said that, if we completely change the numbered series, everyone might be a little confused. At some point we’ll have to face that new challenge, but for now, at this point, we’re working on an unnumbered title.
I know you’ve actually just started working on the game, but can you tell us anything about the game’s systems or the new world at this point?
At this stage, we’re really at the ‘Let’s go with this feeling’ point, so there’s really nothing to talk about. Quite simply, we will protect the three pillars of the Rune Factory series: ‘adventure’, ‘life’ and ‘love’. We create something new without changing it!
