{"id":52097,"date":"2025-09-18T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=52097"},"modified":"2025-09-18T14:19:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:19:35","slug":"rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/","title":{"rendered":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma’s devs set out to rectify the series’ buggy reputation with the mindset “we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch”\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marvelous\u2019s Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma <\/strong>had a successful launch early in June this year, with worldwide sales of 500,000+ units, and positive reception across Steam<\/a> and Metacritic<\/a>. Besides experimenting with the Rune Factory formula<\/a> and trying out a new Japanese-style setting, another goal of Guardians of Azuma\u2019s creators was to earn the playerbase\u2019s trust with a smooth and trouble-free release, hoping to undo the series\u2019 reputation of being somewhat bug-prone.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii recently talked to AUTOMATON about the strict \u201czero bugs allowed\u201d mindset they approached development with. When asked about the new entry’s comparatively low number of bugs at launch, Fujii explains, \u201cFrom around the midpoint of development, I kept telling the team We\u2019re not leaving any bugs.<\/em>\u201d To this, Maekawa humorously adds, \u201cYou also told us that we wouldn’t be releasing a day-one patch.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rune<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although he\u2019s aware that releasing a completely bugless game without fixes is difficult to achieve in reality, Fujii considers this to be an important objective to adhere to during development. \u201cI constantly emphasized \u2018zero bugs\u2019 to prevent a situation in which players can\u2019t enjoy the game because of bugs. While zero is admittedly hard to pull off, I think the whole team united under that ideal, and I believe that as a result, we ended up with very few noticeable issues during regular gameplay.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about why he adopted such a stern stance on bugs for Guardians of Azuma, Fujii comments, \u201cThere was a general perception that there\u2019s never been a bug-free Rune Factory game before, so my number one priority was to regain players’ trust. As long as I\u2019m the one making it, I swore I wouldn\u2019t leave bugs behind. I\u2019ve always felt that, for this title and future releases, we need to make something fans can feel safe buying.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maekawa adds, \u201cOne of our lead programmers once mentioned to a friend that he was working on Rune Factory. Apparently, the friend\u2019s reaction was, \u2018Isn\u2019t that the series that\u2019s always buggy?\u2019 He was really shocked (laughs). That frustration motivated him to work with real determination to get rid of as many bugs as possible.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rune<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Besides determination, Guardians of Azuma\u2019s quality was also aided by the knowledge the dev team gained from working on previous Rune Factory titles. Thanks to this experience, the developers knew which game mechanics tended to be bug-prone, like the system of characters being pulled between the main scenario and romance subplots, which is known to cause deadlocks in story progression. \u201cTo prevent that this time, we built in safeguards right from the design stage. We also simplified things wherever possible, for instance, by controlling progression flags only through scripts.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, as Fujii notes, the trickiest part of making Rune Factory games is how many different things it lets you do \u2013 with so many features and systems, unpredictable behaviors and glitches are bound to happen. However, the developers seem determined to reduce bugs to a minimum even as the franchise expands and introduces new features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is available for PC (Steam<\/a>), Nintendo Switch<\/a> and Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related article: Rune Factory devs see the series\u2019 \u201cfinal form\u201d as a game you can keep living in forever<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii talk about their rigorous stance on bugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":52099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,10],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-52097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-interviews","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's devs set out to rectify the series' buggy reputation with the mindset "we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch"\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii talk about their rigorous stance on bugs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's devs set out to rectify the series' buggy reputation with the mindset "we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch"\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii talk about their rigorous stance on bugs.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-18T13:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250918-52097-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1516\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"849\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's devs set out to rectify the series' buggy reputation with the mindset \"we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch\"\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii talk about their rigorous stance on bugs.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's devs set out to rectify the series' buggy reputation with the mindset \"we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch\"\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii talk about their rigorous stance on bugs.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2025-09-18T13:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1516,"height":849,"url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250918-52097-header.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Amber V","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amber V","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/"},"author":{"name":"Amber V","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9"},"headline":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma’s devs set out to rectify the series’ buggy reputation with the mindset “we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch”\u00a0","datePublished":"2025-09-18T13:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/"},"wordCount":583,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250918-52097-header.jpg","keywords":["News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["Game Development","Interviews"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/","name":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's devs set out to rectify the series' buggy reputation with the mindset \"we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch\"\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250918-52097-header.jpg","datePublished":"2025-09-18T13:00:00+00:00","description":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma game director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii talk about their rigorous stance on bugs.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250918-52097-header.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250918-52097-header.jpg","width":1516,"height":849,"caption":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma'"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/game-development\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-devs-set-out-to-rectify-the-series-buggy-reputation-with-the-mindset-were-not-releasing-a-day-one-patch\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u30db\u30fc\u30e0","item":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma’s devs set out to rectify the series’ buggy reputation with the mindset “we\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch”\u00a0"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","name":"AUTOMATON WEST","description":"AUTOMATON is a website that covers the Japanese gaming world. We bring you the news on video games from Osaka and Tokyo.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization","name":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","width":374,"height":190,"caption":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/AUTOMATON_ENG","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCabvYnvuUUbbGUrxkaFRgSA"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9","name":"Amber V","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","caption":"Amber V"},"description":"Editor-in-Chief since October 2023. She grew up playing Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein with her dad, and is now enamored with obscure Japanese video games and internet culture. Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52097"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52106,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52097\/revisions\/52106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}