For a couple of decades now, software development company Enterbrain has put the power of video game development into the hands of consumers with the RPG Maker franchise. Through a series of user-interfaces, a visual world-building tool and the imagination of its user, players have the power to create a 2D-style RPG, with room for advanced users to get creative through a scripting language, and export it to one of several platforms.
With RPG Maker MV the last to launch on Steam in 2015, we were about due for a new instalment. Publisher Degica has this evening confirmed that RPG Maker MZ is in development for release in the coming months (Summer 2020, or Winter 2020 in the Southern Hemisphere).
More information about RPG Maker MZ is due to be made public over the coming days and weeks, but below is what the publishers have shared publically so far:
- Map Editor: RPG Maker MZ will feature a more robust map editor than its predecessors, and will feature a range of new resources to use.
- Character Generation: Improving from the feature first introduced in RPG Maker MV, RPG Maker MZ will feature “a more powerful character generation function”.
- More Assets than Ever Before: Degica is boasting that RPG Maker MZ will have the largest collection of assets in the series’ history.
- Database: The database is where users go to edit many features in the game, from creating playable characters to selecting what song is played on the opening screen. Degica has claimed that this system has had its functionalities “augmented and expanded”.
- The Events, Animation, Plug-in and Game Playing Systems will also receive unspecified improvements.
Expect to hear more about RPG Maker MZ soon. Until then, scroll down for our first look at Japanese screenshots for the game development tool. There are many similarities to the already released RPG Maker MV, so fans should eagerly await more specifics around the improvements.
Want to read more about the earlier RPG Maker releases? I have previously reviewed RPG Maker FES on the Nintendo 3DS, RPG Maker MV on the PC and RPG Maker VX Ace on the PC.
