In celebration of Harvest Moon’s 20th anniversary, Natsume Inc., a worldwide developer and publisher of family-oriented video games, and Rising Star Games, European video game publisher and long-standing partner of Natsume, today announced an all-new title, Harvest Moon: Light of Hope. The new game will encompass twenty years of spirit that has made the franchise what it is today, and will be available on Nintendo Switch, Steam, and PlayStation 4! This is the first time the Harvest Moon brand will be on Steam and the Nintendo Switch. The title will be playable on both Switch and PC in the Natsume booth at E3 2017 in South Hall, Booth 2047 in June.
In Harvest Moon: Light of Hope, players begin the game as they set out looking for a fresh start and new surroundings. During their voyage, their ship is hit by a monsoon and goes down. As they drift into a small harbor town, now in a shambles from the storm, it will be up to the player to help rebuild the town and save the lighthouse…but it won’t be easy! Nevertheless, with some hard work growing crops, tending livestock, and gathering materials for repairs, players will be able to make new friends, start a family, revive the lighthouse, and save the town!
“Harvest Moon: Light of Hope will set itself apart from other Harvest Moon titles with its depth, including a robust story and clear-cut goals,” said Hiro Maekawa, President & CEO of Natsume. “We set out to create a SNES-style nostalgic game with deep and meaningful characters and events, and we are excited to have our fans play it at E3 and tell us what they think!”
“Partnering with Natsume for over a decade, we’ve been delighted to bring the joyful gameplay of Harvest Moon to fans in Europe and beyond”, said Martin Defries, Managing Director, Rising Star Games. “We are excited to be part of the unveiling of Harvest Moon: Light of Hope at E3”.
As part of the year-long 20th anniversary celebration, Natsume has also unveiled the re-release of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition and Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland for the PlayStation 4, and Harvest Moon 64 for the Nintendo Wii U. Rising Star Games, in cooperation with Natsume, announced its first ever app for smart devices, Harvest Moon Lil’ Farmers. The history of the franchise can be seen at a new site with official release dates, artwork, box art, and interesting trivia.
Source: PR
So….excited
Behave yourself :)
So excited to behave myself also:P
there needs to be more HM games like A Wonderful Life! The graphics, characters, story and gameplay were the most memorable in the series IMO.
Nice! Finally a new HM game on home consoles, it’s been so long. The older titles getting re-released on PS4 was a pleasant surprise already, looking forward to some gameplay footage of the new title. Though I’ll keep my expectations low, considering the recent Harvest Moon games didn’t exactly hit the spot, hah. Nonetheless, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see how it turns out. (:
Natsume can no longer legally “hit the spot”. The Harvest Moon games we remember were localized versions of Marvelous Entertainments’ owned “Bokujo Monogatari”. They Seperated from Marvelous back in 2012, but still own the rights to the Harvest Moon name. Bokujo Monogatari is now known as “Story of Seasons”
I’m aware of that. None of that means it’s out of the realms of possibility for Natsume to ever make a decent game. (:
It’s going to be nuts if they don’t release some Animal Crossing information at some point.
What’s the deal with the divergence of Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons? Which one is closer to the original, and what are the main differences?
Story of Seasons is Harvest Moon. They just lost the name so they had to change it. Check out my comment below if you want to know more.
The last two games that have Harvest Moon in the title are entirely new games made in US with a new developer.
Thanks, man. I guess Story of Seasons really is where it’s at.
Story of Seasons is the original and real “Harvest Moon” Game. Essentially what happened is Natsume owned the publishing rights to the original Harvest Moon games. When the company that makes Harvest Moon in Japan got bought out they decided to start using their own subsidiary to localize them in the West, instead of Natsume . The problem is Natsume owns the Title Harvest Moon. So they had to rename Harvest Moon in the West as something else. Story of Seasons was born.
Natsume who just lost their biggest money maker but still owned the name Harvest Moon, created their own team to start making their own Harvest Moon games. Thus their version of Harvest Moon was born. Problem is its kind of bad. It has some neat ideas but its very very watered down. Its like a cross between Minecraft and Harvest Moon, but its extremely buggy and laggy and ugly to look at.
Story of Seasons is the Harvest Moon we all know and love.
Commander! Sub-Commander! Have you been to this”moon”? It sounds like the inhabitants work a lot? In agriculture?
||Travel there and give me a report about this moon and its inhabitants…||
REMEMBER THIS IS NOT “FARM STORY”
The Farm Story games, developed by Victor Interactive and Marvelous, were localized in the west under the name Harvest Moon up until 2012, with the last title being “Harvest Moon 3D: A New Beginning.” This includes Harvest Moon 64, A Wonderful Life, Back to Nature, and much more.
Since then, Marvelous has decided to publish their own games internationally, but they were unable to legally continue using the Harvest Moon name for their games in the west. As such, any and all of the Farm Story games were localized as Story of Seasons.
The current Harvest Moon games developed and published by Natsume ARE NOT sequels to the Farm Story games many are familiar with. The actual sequels are called Story of Seasons in the west now.
As someone whose always wanted to try the series. Is this a good entry? I own about just other console that some released on.