Rune Factory 6 (2026)

As a relaxing life sim Rune Factory 5 certainly has a cozy home on Nintendo Switch. The dozens of hours of gameplay extend beyond finishing the main story, with levels to be maxed out, new equipment forged and even a new dungeon to explore, making the occasional lack of clarity of next steps a minor issue in the deservedly popular farming title.

Rune Factory 5 marks the first new chapter of the simulation RPG series after a long hiatus and this new arrival on the Nintendo Switch brings very appealing characters, a good combat system and some interesting gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately its biggest weaknesses are difficult to overlook, namely when it comes to its performance and poor graphics, as well as to repetitive spaces to explore. While it is possible to get used to these shortcomings, they remain impossible to understand and in several cases make the experience less enjoyable than it should be.

Rune Factory 5 is a technically perfect game that meets all of its goals. Unfortunately for the player, the goals met are either not very impressive or downright uncomfortable.

Although somewhat fun when not disturbed by the problems described above, Rune Factory 5 is the first fully 3D title in the franchise and a step in the right direction for the saga (if sequels exist after the developers' bankruptcy). The already traditional Rune Factory systems such as combat, farming, and the famous interpersonal relationships are intact to some extent, but it is sad to see that the visuals come across as too simplistic for such a large-scale transition. With the controls making life difficult for players, I recommend first acquiring Rune Factory 4 Special and, if you like it, moving on to this fifth iteration.

I had never played a Rune Factory game before – not even that but any game of this genre. If you want a good idea of what Rune Factory is, it is like Stardew Valley where you harvest yourself a field of crops, go on adventures, interact with the town people, and so on and so forth. This brings us to Rune Factory 5. How was it? Was it a great harvest from start to finish? Was it a great game to be introduced into the harvest genre? Let’s find out!