Last fall, at the Tokyo Game Show, I asked producer Yusuke Tomizawa why there had been such a long gap between the upcoming Tales of Arise and previous Tales games.
“We’ve switched to Unreal Engine 4,” he said at the time. “We want to bring in new players. That’s where we are starting from and that’s why it’s taken so long.”
What’s more, Bandai Namco hoped to release the game simultaneously worldwide in 2020, which also took time. But now, in an official statement, Tomizawa announced that the game would be delayed. Its new release date is TBA.
According to Tomizawa, the novel coronavirus has caused the reorganize its development process to minimize the effects of the pandemic and continue making the game.
“Nevertheless,” he continues, “in order to satisfy the largest number of people and to offer the world a deeply moving, high-quality experience, we’ve concluded that at this present moment more time is needed and decided to change the release date.”
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However, Tomizawa points out that “TBA” doesn’t mean the outlook on development has become unclear. “The creative work continues without haste, so please rest easy on that point.”