Developer Natsume announced that its Harvest Moon farming simulation series will continue on the Nintendo 3DS with the upcoming launch of Harvest Moon: Skytree Village, a sequel to 2014’s Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley.
Acknowledging The Lost Valley‘s shortcomings, Natsume vows that community feedback will play a large role in Skytree Village‘s development prior to release.
Harvest Moon has struggled to reinvent itself following the departure of longtime developer Marvelous, which now produces similar farming-themed simulation games as part of Xseed’s Story of Seasons series. Retaining the rights to the Harvest Moon trademark, Natsume enlisted new developers to tackle future entries in the series, starting with 2014’s The Lost Valley.
The Lost Valley (pictured above) marked a significant departure for the Harvest Moon series, adding Minecraft-inspired terraforming mechanics while omitting expected features like explorable villages and item foraging. The resulting product drew an overwhelmingly negative response from devoted series fans.
Natsume promises an improved gameplay experience in Skytree Village with additions like user-friendly tutorials, upgraded farming tools, and overhauled fishing mechanics. Notably, Natsume assures that Skytree Village will feature “a full town with many residents,” directly addressing one of The Lost Valley‘s most criticized shortcomings.
Skytree Village will otherwise retain The Lost Valley‘s terraforming mechanics, and other returning gameplay features will be improved based on community input.
“After the evolutionary Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley and a successful jaunt to mobile platforms with Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories, we are really excited to share everything we have learned with our fans,” Natsume CEO Hiro Maekawa said. “Our community is very important to us, and their feedback and input has been taken into account a great deal in the development of Harvest Moon: Skytree Village! We hope they will see and feel their contribution in this new game!”
Harvest Moon: Skytree Village will make its debut appearance at the Electronic Entertainment Expo later this month. A release date is not yet known.