Today's issue of Weekly Famitsu included a large spread on the recently-announced Valkyria Chronicles 4, coming with a lot more screenshots, artwork, and information.

First of all, we learn more about the main characters involved with the story.

Claude Wallace is the protagonist of the story. Graduated from the military academy with top grades, he serves as the Captain of Squad E of the 32nd Armored Ranger Batallion, 1st Battle Brigade, 101st Division, Edinburgh Army of the Atlantic Federation. He is serious and hot-blooded, good at looking after his men. He is also in command of the tank, leading his men with a mix of tactical knowledge and natural instinct. He is able to inspire them with his hot temper, but still asks them to come home alive.

Riley Miller is the heroine of the story, and she is part of the fire support team of the 32nd Armored Ranger Batallion. She is a genius in ragnite engineering, and she is quite prideful, but with a positive attitude. She is very proficient in how to make use of the full array of her weapons. In particular, she fights wight a grenade launcher named "Magic Cylinder" and boasts a phenomenal hit ratio thanks to her innate ability to calculate ballistic trajectories.

Raz is the vice-captain of E Squad. He tends to be misunderstood because his tone becomes harsh very quickly, but he is actually a friendly and thoughtful man. He doesn't have a last name because he is part of the Darcsen minority. He is affectionately nicknamed "Invulnerable Raz" because he always leads from the front. Claude respects his abilities, and the two have formed a strong bond.

Kai Schulen is a genius sniper nicknamed "One-Shot Killer" among Squad E's members. She is usually a quiet young lady, but when she talks, she does so bluntly, with the same tone as a man. Beyond first impressions, she actually has a nice personality. She never loses sight of her targeted prey, but in addition to being a proficient sniper, she is also very fit physically.

Now, before you head to the comments to fight over the best waifu between Riley and Kai, let's talk about the new Grenadier class. They fight using a grenade launcher coming with long range and high trajectory. Projectiles are sent high into the sky from a remote location, bypassing rocks, sandbags, and buildings that would block other firearms. It can hit targets beyond visual range, so if an ally relays the position of an enemy, it can be attacked even if the grenadier himself has no line of sight. They're basically long-range specialists.

That being said, while grenadiers have extreme long-range power, they cannot attack enemies that are close by, so they are the weakest close combat fighters. As usual, it'll be important to use each class against its most advantageous targets, because each soldier is strong against certain types of enemies, and weak against others.

The Hafen-Go is Claude's tank. It's a medium tank manufactured in the Federation. It has superior firepower compared to Imperial tanks, but it's less armored. The origin of its name is Claude's own hometown (Editor's Note: "Go" is an identifier used in the name of many Japanese World War II tanks).

The basics of the BLiTZ system work as they did in the previous games of the series, with CP (command points) used to have a unit perform an action, with each unit that can be moved as many times as the player wants as long as there are CP left. AP (action points) are used by each unit to move around. While moving a unit, both allies and enemies remain immobile, but enemies will start shooting if the unit enters their attack range.

We also learn that the game is currently 90% complete. It will release both in North America and Europe for PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One, and will come in 2018. In Japan, it will launch for PS4 on March 21st and for Nintendo Switch a few months later in Summer 2018.

You can check out the screenshots below (keeping in mind that they come from magazine scans, so the quality isn't perfect), and if you want to see more, you can enjoy the announcement trailer, on top of the first details and screenshots.