Sega announced today that the strategy-RPG Valkyria Chronicles 4, "a coming-of-age story in a time of war" featuring an all-new cast of characters, will be out on September 25. The new game will follow the adventures of the Federation's Squad E as they fight a desperate battle against the enemy, the elements, and the god-like Valkyria.
The members of Squad E sound like a typical war movie cast. There's the determined young Commander Claude Wallace, heavy weapons specialist Riley Miley, the hot-headed Darcsen Raz, the stone-cold sniper Kai Schulen, and even a dog (who is apparently also a medic) named Ragnarok—friends since childhood, but can that friendship hold up under the pressures of war?
The new game will feature an updated version of the Blitz battle system, which will include a new Grenadier class, new offensive and defensive battleship support options, and larger-scale maps with more units than previous Valkyria Chronicles games. Original composer Hitoshi Sakomoto is back, as is the watercolor-inspired visual style, enabling "an expressive world filled with colorful emotions," as Sega put it. That's maybe a little over-the-top, but it does look nice.
The PC version of the game will also support 4K resolutions and ultra-wide displays, customizable controls, and Steam achievements and trading cards. What it will not have, unfortunately, is a physical edition like the ones coming to consoles. That's not necessarily a big deal unless you're a big fan and/or collector of such things, but the "Memoirs From Battle" edition being released in the EU and UK also includes two DLC adventures featuring characters from Squad 7, the unit at the center of the original game. The DLCs will cover four story missions totaling more than three hours of play, and once completed the Squad 7 characters will be unlocked for use in Valkyria Chronicles 4.
I would assume (and, honestly, expect) that the bonus content will also be available for PC, perhaps as a preorder bonus or in some kind of "launch day edition," but for now Steam gives no indication about its status. It also still lists Valkyria Chronicles 4 availability as just 2018, though, so maybe the page just hasn't been updated yet. I've emailed Sega to ask and will update if I receive a reply.