A hero (whose gender—male or female—and name—Ares or Alice by default—can be chosen by the player)[1] loses their memory and ends up joining SEED, a group of rangers led by a young girl named Livia operating in the small town of Rigbarth, populated by humans and beast people, after saving a young fox girl.

The hero is encouraged to tend the land and complete tasks for the townspeople, as well as battle monsters in order to maintain the peace.

They later stop Radea's attempt to absorb all runes in the area and after learning that her sister is alive and well, explains Gideon's plans to control everyone's will after seeing the chaos that happened following the collapse of the Sechs Empire.

The hero finds them with Lucas's assistance and after they and Livia defeat Gideon, they learn that he's been manipulated by an evil entity called the Fathomless Dread into freeing it.

Players can also form social connections with the game's townsfolk, including ones with bachelors or bachelorettes leading to marriage.

[2] Following the success of Rune Factory 4, series producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto commented that the development of a sequel was expected.

[29][30] In Japan, the Nintendo Switch version of Rune Factory 5 debuted with 102,853 physical copies sold, making it the bestselling retail game during its first week of release.