Earlier this fall, Sega registered a number of trademarks related to their mostly dormant Valkyria Chronicles series, leaving fans to speculate about a new entry. Well, this week's Famitsu brought two surprises for the faithful: Valkyria: Azure Revolution, a new game in the franchise, and a console remaster of the original Valkyria Chronicles, which is coming on February 10 and will ship with a demo of Azure Revolution.
Gemetsu's Sal Romano provides more details translated from the Famitsu story. Unlike previous Valkyria games, which were tactical RPGs that let players directly control units one at a time, Azure Revolution will be a real-time action RPG. Screenshots from Famitsu show a group of protagonists fighting against a large group of enemies wearing the same sort of industrial-engineer-meets-medieval-knight armor that was used in the first few games. There's also some sort of giant spider mech. So, you know, historically accurate.
According to details provided to Famitsu by game director Takeshi Ozawa and chief producer Youichi Simosato, Azure Revolution will kick off of a whole new set of "Valkyria" games, separate from the original games in the Chronicles series. But like the original game, Azure Revolution will still follow a conflict between a small country and its much larger, more industrial neighbor:
With the discovery of the azure mineral Ragnite, the powerful Rus Empire achieved rapid industrial development and expanded its territory. Jutland, a small country, is economically blockaded by the large country, and advocating “independence and freedom from colonial rule,” strikes the empire army’s base.
Throughout the short interview, the two developers try to walk the line between assuring old fans that they'll still find elements of past Valkyria games here and excitedly revealing details about the new direction that Valkyria is headed.
All of this comes after last fall's surprise PC release of the first Valkyria Chronicles, which introduced the series to a new audience. At the time, that felt like it was Sega testing the waters for future Valkyria games, so I'm curious if we'll see Azure Revolution on PC eventually too.
In any case, as a long time Valkyria Chronicles fan, I'm stoked to see a new game in the franchise--even a dramatically different one. But if I'm being really honest, what I really want to see is a translation and Western release of Valkyria Chronicles 3. Please? One day?