Back in January, Marvelous AQL announced that Rune Factory 4’s European release had, unfortunately, been cancelled. At the time, the company stated, “While Marvelous AQL has made every effort to secure the title’s release for this territory, it is, unfortunately, not possible to do so at this time.”
News of Rune Factory 4’s cancellation in Europe came two months after an announcement that Neverland, Co., the studio that develops the Rune Factory games in collaboration with Marvelous, was filing for bankruptcy and shutting down. The general consensus was that the closure and the game’s cancellation were related.
A comment by Xseed Executive Vice-President Ken Berry on the publisher’s Facebook appears to support this theory. In reply to a European fan inquiring if it would be possible for Xseed to pubilish Rune Factory 4 in Europe, Berry shared that technical difficulties would prevent this from being possible. He stated:
“Wish it was that easy as obviously everyone involved in the project would love to see it released in Europe, but it’s very difficult from a technical aspect since the people closest to the code are all gone (the Forbidden Magna team does have people from Neverland, yes, but for example the main programmer for RF4 is not one of them).”
Forbidden Magna is a new game being published by Marvelous AQL, and is being directed by Rune Factory series director Masahide Miyata, along with other former members of Neverland, Co. Marvelous announced the game in February, playing up the fact that members of the Rune Factory team were working on it. Unfortunately, it would seem that Rune Factory 4’s main programmer and other people involved with the game code aren’t on that list.
