Today Koei Tecmo and Gust announced the Japanese release date of Atelier Ryza: The Queen of Everlasting Darkness and the Secret Hideaway.
The game will launch in Japan for PS4 and Switch on September 26, while the Steam launch remains unannounced. This is likely to coincide with the western release, which hasn’t been revealed yet.
Included in the update of the official website are plenty of screenshots, which you can check at the bottom of the post.
The story is set on the island of Koken in the middle of a lake and starts in the village of Rasenboden. Ryza is just an ordinary girl living there, but she feels uneasy about her boring everyday life. She gathers like-minded friends to talk about their plans outside of the village.
One day, she decides to explore the other side of the island where access is prohibited, and she meets a man who uses the mysterious power of alchemy. Fascinated by that power, she asks him to teach her. Thanks to the power o alchemy, she takes a step forward, away from her boredom and toward her dreams.
Eventually, the party will take on a “summer adventure” unbeknownst to anyone else in the village.
Speaking of adventures, we also get to see beautiful landscapes, bathed in the new lighting created for this game. The developers put special focus on this in order to improve the looks of the Atelier series.
We also take a look at Ryza’s companions, and we get the official transliterations of their names. Lent Marslink is Ryza’s childhood friend, and due to certain circumstances, he is shunned in the village. He hopes to achieve something big one day that would earn him the respect of the villagers.
He’s a friendly person, but he has common sense and he often mitigates Ryza’s hot temper.
Tao Mongarten is also Ryza’s childhood friend and a bookworm who usually gets bullied. He always carries around difficult old books from his house’s underground library, as he works on deciphering them. Therefore, he doesn’t really talk to the other villagers. He’s a shy person affected by issues with socializing, but he would never abandon his friends.
His intellectual curiosity is almost obsessive, and he focuses on that so much that he ends up being isolated.
Klaudia Valentz is a young traveling merchant who came to Ryze’s village. She usually travels with her father, so she hasn’t been blessed with the chance of making good close friends. Despite that, she has a warm personality and she is unexpectedly brave.
You can check out all the screenshots below, alongside some beautiful artwork that will be used for the retailer-exclusive bonuses in Japan. Do keep in mind that those are traditionally a little sexier than the game itself , especially at retailers that specifically cater to an otaku audience like Trader or Sofmap.
They’re easy to distinguish from the “sample” watermark. Interestingly, they also hint that new characters will be revealed on June 26 and July 27.
If you want to see more, you can enjoy the first screenshots and the first video.
