{"id":52153,"date":"2025-09-19T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=52153"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:45:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T02:45:32","slug":"rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/","title":{"rendered":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma’s developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma<\/strong>, the latest reimagining of the original series, released on June 5 this year to widely positive reception. While mixing traditional Rune Factory elements with novelties, the game was also commended for its numerous playability and QoL upgrades compared to the previous titles in the franchise. Recently, AUTOMATON got together with director Shiro Maekawa and producer Hisashi Fujii, who shared some details about their user-friendly approach to development, including how they looked to other titles in the genre to improve Guardians of Azuma in this aspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

As Rune Factory is in many ways a pioneer of the fantasy life sim genre, Maekawa and Fujii found it quite difficult to find works outside the series that they could use as a benchmark for balancing the game. \u201cThat\u2019s why we kept playtesting over and over, making refinements over refinements, and we finally settled for the current balance of the game,\u201d Fujii explained. Apparently, as most of the staff were busy with development, Fujii took it upon himself to do test the game \u2013 playing it nonstop for around a whole year and giving feedback to the developers in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

While the feedback loop continued for a long time and presumably yielded a lot of changes throughout development (the cycle for a child to be born got cut significantly shorter per Fujii\u2019s request, for example), the producer\u2019s main focus was making the game accessible to players and easy to pick up. Though, that feeling also overlapped with the frustration he felt playing the same game over and over again, Maekawa added jokingly. \u201cI was told many times to just make the game more user-friendly,\u201d he said reminiscing on some of the feedback he received from Fujii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Guardians of Azuma introduces a simplified crafting system with a more straightforward format than past entries. Additionally, the skill system was revamped into a more organized skill tree, as the devs found the traditional system sometimes didn\u2019t make it clear enough what players needed to do in order to advance skills. Small details that made gameplay tedious \u2013 like having to level up weapons from scratch when switching \u2013 were also done away with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Besides devoted playtesting, Fujii also actively played a lot of other life simulators and RPGs to see how they compare in terms of playability. \u201cPlaying recent games, it\u2019s extremely noticeable that a lot of them are heading in a very user-friendly direction \u2013 and we\u2019ve kept that in mind when creating Guardians of Azuma.\u201d As a series that offers tons of different features \u2013 from farming and romance, to dungeon crawling and boss battles, Rune Factory may seem like quite an intimidating title to get your hands on. However, applying their knowledge of modern games, the developers were determined to make the new title in the long running series easier to pick up \u2013 in every sense of that word. Maekawa added that the team extensively researched other RPGs to check which controls were assigned to which buttons on controllers, implying that they were aiming to set them in a way that was already familiar to players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma<\/a>\u00a0is out now PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related articles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma\u2019s devs set out to rectify the series\u2019 buggy reputation with the mindset \u201cwe\u2019re not releasing a day-one patch\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rune Factory devs see the series\u2019 \u201cfinal form\u201d as a game you can keep living in forever<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rune Factory devs created Guardians of Azuma as a way to experiment with the IP before tackling a new mainline entry\u00a0
<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/a>
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Automaton interviewed the director and producer of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma about their user-friendly approach to development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":52154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-52153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Automaton interviewed the director and producer of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma about their user-friendly approach to development.\" \/>\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\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/\" \/>\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 developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Automaton interviewed the director and producer of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma about their user-friendly approach to development.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-19T13:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-52153-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"\u0110or\u0111e P\" \/>\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=\"\u0110or\u0111e P\" \/>\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 developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"Automaton interviewed the director and producer of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma about their user-friendly approach to development.","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\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"Automaton interviewed the director and producer of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma about their user-friendly approach to development.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2025-09-19T13:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":540,"url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-52153-header.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"\u0110or\u0111e P","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"\u0110or\u0111e P","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/"},"author":{"name":"\u0110or\u0111e P","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/e62deb6406bad91fe5f441afc29c1696"},"headline":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma’s developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay","datePublished":"2025-09-19T13:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/"},"wordCount":619,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-52153-header.jpg","keywords":["News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["Interviews","News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/","name":"Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma's developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay - AUTOMATON WEST","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-52153-header.jpg","datePublished":"2025-09-19T13:00:00+00:00","description":"Automaton interviewed the director and producer of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma about their user-friendly approach to development.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-52153-header.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250919-52153-header.jpg","width":960,"height":540},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/rune-factory-guardians-of-azumas-developers-looked-to-other-life-simulator-games-to-improve-playability-and-minimize-tedious-gameplay\/#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 developers looked to other life simulator games to improve playability and minimize tedious gameplay"}]},{"@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\/e62deb6406bad91fe5f441afc29c1696","name":"\u0110or\u0111e P","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/profil-150x150.jpg","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/profil-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/profil-150x150.jpg","caption":"\u0110or\u0111e P"},"description":"Automaton West Editor","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/djordje-p\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52153","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\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52159,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52153\/revisions\/52159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}