Marvelous says Rune Factory 5 is still coming in 2020 in Japan on Switch, surprisingly.
Marvelous, like many other Japanese game companies, published a new financial report a few days ago. Now, my paycheck isn’t big enough to give you a full summary of the report with the actual numbers, but as you can guess with the Covid-19 pandemic: Marvelous’ revenue coming from its activities like stage plays, arcade games such as Pokemon Gaole (which is now shutting down), anime, and music, have been dwindling. Meanwhile game sales and revenue have increased.
All the online and mobile games such as Senran Kagura New Link and Ikkitousen Extra Burst are reported to be doing well too. Mobile games in Japan is a far bigger market than console games. That’s also why the two Fate/Extella games just got ported to mobile.
The financial report also mentions again how Tencent invested in Marvelous.
The biggest shock though is the report listing Rune Factory 5 for a 2020 release on Nintendo Switch.
Rune Factory 5 was first announced alongside Rune Factory 4 Special on February 2019. The Switch exclusive was slated for a release sometime after March 2020 back then. However, the official Twitter account of the Rune Factory series hasn’t even tweeted once since 2020 started. The last tweet dates from December 12, 2019:
【期間限定10％OFFキャンペーン実施中】
ダウンロード版『ルーンファクトリー４スペシャル』の10％OFFキャンペーンがニンテンドーeショップで開催中です。期間限定のキャンペーンですのでご購入はお早めに！
詳細はコチラ⇒https://t.co/HoBeALX6AZ#RuneFactory pic.twitter.com/uINhpERhox— 『ルーンファクトリー』シリーズ公式 (@RuneFactory_PR) December 12, 2019
As such, I’ve been personally expecting Marvelous to announce Rune Factory 5 is delayed due to the pandemic and work from home conditions slowing down development. Like many other Japanese studios did. And yet it still hasn’t happened, and seems like it won’t. Rune Factory 5 is really coming in 2020. We should hear about the game soon. You can be sure we’ll cover it here, just as we fully covered the series’ live streams in the past.
Be sure to check our our review of Rune Factory 4 Special on Switch. You can also read about why Rune Factory is so nice with its mix of farming, crafting, Action RPG and Japanese dating simulators.
Everything we know so far on Rune Factory 5 can be found via our previous coverage. Most notably, 2 guest characters from Rune Factory 4 Special will appear in your playthrough if you link the games’ saves.
The post Rune Factory 5 Still Set to Be The Best 2020 Switch Game Alongside Persona 5 Scramble by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.