Tales of Arise, the latest in Namco Bandai’s long-running Tales franchise, was originally slated for a 2020 release. But thanks to COVID-19, which game producer Yusuke Tomizawa stated was the reason for the delay, news of the title dried up rather quickly and there was a massive delay. But today, Namco Bandai dropped a brand new story trailer for the Tales of Festival celebration, along with the announcement that more news is coming this spring.
The trailer reveals more story and character details, mainly that the protagonist Alphen is a Dahna slave who has no other memories of himself. Still, he has a strong desire to free his fellow Dahnans from their Renan enslavement. He teams up with a spirited woman from Rena named Shionne, who seems to be of some sort of nobility, and summons a powerful sword from her body. However, she makes it clear that while he’s able to wield the mighty weapon, he still needs her to manifest it in the first place.
While we know that Tales of Arise is aiming to revitalize the series, it will still keep the series standard Linear Motion Battle System in place. Because it uses Unreal Engine 4 unlike past games, the graphical quality along with character models and movement is much higher. Hopefully, this will be an entry to remember, as it’s been over five years since the last Tales title released.
Tales of Arise will be launching for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, though no official release date has been announced yet.
