The Rune Factory series’ upcoming spin-off title Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma will, like past entries in the franchise, let you romance characters and start families when you’re not off fighting monsters or minding your farm. In a recent interview with Famitsu, the game’s director Shirou Maekawa talked about how getting married and having children will work.
Following in the footsteps of Rune Factory 5, Guardians of Azuma allows you to court and marry both male and female love interests regardless of the gender of your protagonist. Marriage becomes available once you raise your Bond Level with a character to level 10. Once married, you can have up to two kids. According to Maekawa, the characteristics of your children will change depending on your partner – for example, they will inherit traits like animal ears.
As for children from same-sex marriages, Maekawa says they “will be born in a way that feels natural to any Japanese person.” The team apparently drew from Japanese folk tales when choosing a way to depict this, in line with Guardians of Azuma’s overall fantasy Japanese aesthetic. The director doesn’t reveal the details, only asking players to “please look forward to it,” but the mention of Japanese folklore brings to mind stories like Momotaro, where a childless old couple is bestowed a baby boy by the gods through a giant peach. Another famous fantastical birth is that of Kaguya-hime in the Tale of The Bamboo Cutter, who is born from a glowing bamboo stalk.
On the topic of marriage, Maekawa brings up “Rewoven Fates” – an important addition introduced in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. This new parallel world-like system allows you to switch between timelines and pursue different romances within the same playthrough, i.e., without resetting any of your progress. This feature gets unlocked after you marry for the first time, and the development team decided to add it because of the Seasons of Love DLC. As this DLC adds two exclusive romanceable characters (Cuilang and Pilika) to the game, the devs didn’t want people who buy it later to miss the opportunity to marry them.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma releases on June 5 for PC (Steam) and Nintendo Switch.
