Bandai Namco have announced that the upcoming Tales of Arise – the next entry in their RPG Tales of series – has been delayed. When the game was unveiled at E3 last year, it was announced with an intended 2020 launch. Since then, there had been no word on a more specific release date or window.
As you may have guessed, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been a factor in the game’s delay. Producer Yusuke Tomizawa explains that though development is progressing well and though the team has shifted and adapted to remote work, their schedule has still been impacted, and that the development team needs more time to finish working on the game.
“Development on the title has moved steadily forward in 2020 as we overcame challenges along the way,” Tomizawa wrote.
“While COVID-19 has affected some aspects of development, we’ve done our best to adapt to the situation and have implemented remote development capabilities for our team.
“However, we will need more time to achieve the quality and provide the gorgeous experience we envision for our players, and therefore we decided to delay the launch timing for Tales of Arise.”
No new launch window has been provided yet. “A new launch window update will be provided once we have more details to share,” the producer adds.
Tales of Arise is in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Whether or not this delay means that PS5 and Xbox Series X versions will also be added remains to be seen- though if the game gets pushed back into 2021, it’s very likely that Bandai Namco will want to make that happen (probably).
You can get more details on the game’s structure and open world fields through here, and learn more about its characters and combat in a trailer through here.
