Natsume has announced a new installment in its long-running series of farming simulators for the PC, PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch, Harvest Moon: Light of Hope. The game will be developed in-house at the studio, and published in collaboration with Natsume’s long-standing partner, Rising Star Games.
Light of Hope gets underway with the protagonist in search of pastures new, only to be caught in a terrible storm that wreaks havoc on a nearby harbor town. Upon arriving at the village, the player is tasked with spearheading the rebuild and fixing the lighthouse, which will be accomplished via the series’ tried-and-tested gameplay mechanics of crop management, livestock care, and resource collection.
However, Natsume is planning to make some changes to the formula. “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, the studio’s president and CEO. However, he also noted that the game will be inspired by classic installments for the NES, and will possess a certain nostalgic quality.
After serving its passionate fanbase largely without rivals for many years, Harvest Moon gained some major competition in 2016 with the release of Stardew Valley. The indie sleeper hit built upon the series’ classic formula with some new ideas of its own, and from Maekawa’s references to a robust story and clear-cut goals, it seems that Natsume might borrow some concepts from its newfound rival.
This year, the Harvest Moon franchise celebrates the 20th anniversary of its arrival in the United States. To mark the occasion, Natsume has already re-released Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition and Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland on the PlayStation 4, as well as Harvest Moon 64 on the Wii U.
No release date has been announced for Light of Hope, but the game will be playable at E3 2017 in June.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.