Rune Factory 4 Special is coming to PC

Rune Factory 4 is almost a decade old, at this point. It first released on the 3DS in 2021, before last year's Rune Factory 4 Special made the jump to the Nintendo Switch. It's also, according to longtime series fans, the best of the bunch—a potent concoction of Harvest Moon-style farming and socializing and action-RPG adventuring. There have been plenty of farming sims on PC in the last few years in the wake of Stardew Valley, but none have so thoroughly blended genres as Rune Factory, which makes today's news that Rune Factory 4 Special is hitting PC a real delight.

In a trailer during the Future Games Show today, publisher XSeed announced Rune Factory 4 Special is headed to Steam (as well as PS4, Xbox One and Series X/S). XSeed also brought a trailer for the upcoming Rune Factory 5, which looks like a huge graphical leap for the series. Makes sense, considering RF4's 3DS origins.

Rune Factory 5, sadly, has only been announced for the Nintendo Switch for early 2022. But if you aim to be a completionist in Rune Factory 4 Special, it may well hold you over until then.

Rune Factory 4 Special releases on Steam this fall.

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Read more
Fields of Mistria with a PC Gamer personal pick banner
The early access for Fields of Mistria was better than every other farm sim this year by a country mile thanks to its cast of hot anime-inspired sweethearts and great dialogue
MySims: Cozy Bundle
The MySims: Cozy Bundle brings the blocky-headed chibi sims over to PC: 'It's still very, very Sims'
Fields of Mistria
The hottest farming sim since Stardew Valley just got its second major update, adding lava caves and pets you unlock by having a 'pet dream'
Swen Vincke
Swen Vincke stamps seal of approval on Stardew Valley mod that yoinks the Baldur's Gate 3 cast out of D&D and into a cosy pastoral life
Tiny Garden - A digital spherical capsule toy with a crank that has a small garden inside
Tiny Garden is an adorable Polly Pocket-sized farm sim where you crank a handle to grow crops
A medieval city
'It may seem like a whole new game': One of my favorite medieval city builders just got a huge update with a ton of new features
Latest in RPG
Person battling bizarre four-eyed monster with stylish UI elements surrounding them
Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio's UI designer is open to accessibility options for players who find the stylish menus overstimulating: 'That is something we understand we'll need to work on and provide in the future'
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth money farm - Super Crazy Delivery
Like a Dragon series director sums up why sidequests are essential to a great RPG with a single metaphor: 'a good main dish alone will not earn you a Michelin star'
Image of a sweetroll with a candle in it
Bethesda marks Oblivion's 19th with a sweetroll, a candle, and absolutely no happy birthday gift for fans eager for the still-unannounced remaster
Fallout 76 ghoul screenshots
Getting to level 50 in Fallout 76 to become a ghoul actually isn't as daunting as it seems, which is why I created a new character
Koana, a main character in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, stares thoughtfully at a book in his hands.
After a controversial coding slip-up fed stalkers info on their victim's alts, FF14 wipes the slate clean to try and fix its mistakes
Scorched person with their hands on their head
Ghoul players in Fallout 76 are starting to place their camps in the most radioactive areas of the map, and regular humans aren't happy: 'I had to inject 30+ radaway into my veins'
Latest in News
Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer still - woman in the front seat of a car, looking out the back window while holding a wad of cash
The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
Image for
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’s getting a new roguelite wave defense mode that sounds a whole lot like a souped-up take on Killing Floor
Battle Brothers
Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets 'a bucket load of fixes' and free new content
Western outlaws with masks and guns
'Players don't explore': former Grand Theft Auto 6 and Red Dead Online designer lays out the perils of 'open world fatigue'
Person battling bizarre four-eyed monster with stylish UI elements surrounding them
Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio's UI designer is open to accessibility options for players who find the stylish menus overstimulating: 'That is something we understand we'll need to work on and provide in the future'
Split Fiction screenshot
Split Fiction is reportedly at the center of a bidding war for its movie rights