In a surprise announcement, Famitsu has revealed that Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town will be getting a remake on the Nintendo Switch!

The remake of this beloved Gameboy Advance game from 2003 will be released in Japan on October 11. Whether the remake will be translated or released overseas, though, is still unknown at this point of time.

In the meantime, here are some previews of the game, from Famitsu scans:

Famitsu

What’s Harvest Moon About?

Before Stardew Valley, there was Harvest Moon. The two are very similar, in the sense that the player is put in charge of a farm. While Stardew Valley makes you defend your crops from monsters, Harvest Moon is more peaceful. Your only concerns are whether your crops are growing well and whether your animals are healthy, and you socialise by giving your neighbours some of your fresh produce. If only real life were that simple, huh?

Friends of Mineral Town, in particular, tasks the player with playing as Pete: a young man with a pen pal who’s just passed away, and is tasked to turn the farm’s fortunes around.

Famitsu

As exciting as all this sounds, unfortunately, it’ll take some time before we know whether the game will be getting an international release. The news might break as soon as next month, though, considering that Famitsu has teased that more news on the game will come next month.

For now, assuming that the developers haven’t started on translations, we suspect that the game will be launched internationally in early 2020. This means that it might end up competing with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, another adorable game of a similar genre, launching in March 2020. Ideally, it’ll launch in December – just in time for Christmas, and to fill in the months before Animal Crossing’s release.

If you haven’t already, check out the trailer for New Horizons here:

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town will launch in Japan on 11 October, 2019. Fingers crossed that it gets translated, and an international release!

A sleepless cryptid with a sweet tooth, who spends most of her free time on the internet. Sheryl loves binge-watching shows on Netflix, Persona 5's Joker, arcades, and all her emotional support K-Pop boys.