Valkyria Chronicles 3 has been something of a hot topic lately, with rumors, shady web sites and unofficial confirmation floating around the vast cacophony that is the Internet. As if all that stuff wasn't enough, I'm going to go ahead and say that this game is officially confirmed now, thanks to Famitsu. It's likely we'll hear more details regarding VC3 as we wade our way through this week's Tokyo Game Show announcements, but for now, here's what we know.

It will be a PSP title. Yes, I know. Let's all breathe a collective sigh of frustration in Sega's direction. While VC2 isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, it is missing that bit of sizzle and spark that the full-blown PS3 title had initially. I was hoping and praying that the next iteration would be on the PS3, but it is not to be.

Apparently, in the Famitsu interview with producer Shinji Motoyama, it was revealed that there was a rather long development time between the PS3 and PSP version, but now that they have the PS3 engine pretty much down pat, they can tell some unique stories in fairly quick order. The release date for VC3 right now is January 27, 2011 in Japan, and that will end up being less than a year after VC2 originally came out there, and less than six months after it was available here in North America.

Valkyria Chronicles 3 apparently goes back to the same time as the original game, just focusing on a different group of soldiers. This group happens to be a bunch of trouble-makers, those who didn't make it in the military very well. I guess they couldn't get along with people or something. There are three characters revealed in the Famitsu article. Looking at the image above, Reira is on the left, and is a decendant of the Valkyria (spoiler alert?), Kurt is in the middle, who hopes to redeem himself and join the "regular" military at some point and, finally, Imuka is on the right, who lost her village to the Valkyria and is out for sweet, sweet revenge.

So, take that as you will for now. Let's see if this week shows us a deeper look at the game, and possibly some new mechanics and aspects to the title.

[Siliconera]