JRPG spin-off Tales of Arise is delayed, with Bandai Namco saying it needs more work.
The game is part of many Japanese titles crunched by pandemic slowdown. Tales of Arise received its first announcement in the last E3 2019 from a year ago. Updates for the game stayed sparse, and likely for a reason.
Much of 2020 is having a ton of problems, many from disruptions such as the pandemic. Many Japanese games are feeling the crunch, due to time away from development. The full brunt of the pandemic is yet to hit the games industry as a whole.
Arise dev team needs “more time to achieve quality”
The news of the delay for Arise comes from Bandai Namco’s official website. According to producer Tomizaka Yusuke, the team needs “more time to achieve the quality and provide the gorgeous experience we envision for (their) players.”
There’s no clear launch window yet for the improved game. Even then, Tomizaka promised that the team will give more updates in the future. Many games suffered setbacks due to the global pandemic crisis.
Many dev teams delayed their titles by a few weeks to a month from the release date. Japan, in particular, received a good brunt of delays for upcoming games this year.
Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris moved from May 22 to July 10. Ghost of Tsushima scheduled for June 26 but moved their timeline to July 17. Guilty Gear Strive moved their release from 2020 to 2021.
FAIRY TAIL also moved to August 30, giving itself another month for polish. The Kiss Trilogy opted for an August release too due to Tokyo’s state of emergency. Japanese titles experienced nothing but delays, and these will grow in the future.
Arise is one of many future Japanese titles to feel the crunch
Tales of Arise will only be one among many games that will experience slowdowns. Japan is among the countries heavily hit by the global pandemic crisis. At the same time, they’re also among few that use a pragmatic way of dealing with it.
Many games so far are on schedule for publication and expected to come on time. Many of these titles were those likely to come out in Fall or Winter 2020. These are also the titles which are likely on the debugging stage of their development.
Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer warned about 2021 games falling behind since mid-May. He noted that many face-to-face operations, like mocap, will likely stop indefinitely.
Japan’s ratings board, CERO, closed for a month and reopened on May 7. They are on reduced work time, with a heavy backlog of games and media to review.
Tales of Arise will be available for PC and all major platforms except the Switch. More information will come out for the title soon.
Featured image courtesy of Bandai Namco/Official Press Release