A New Tales Experience for the West
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition was announced at Microsoft’s 2018 E3 conference. The game is a remaster of the 2008 game originally released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and will include new content that has never been released in western versions of the game, allowing players to experience a fully realized story.
Takashi Hasegawa, one of the game’s writers, talked about the concept and creation of the original game in an interview stemming back to 2008.
“The concept for Vesperia, for example, first came about in a post-Abyss evaluation meeting with Bandai Namco Games,” he said. “It wasn’t a result of us reflecting on the shortcomings of Abyss either, it just came up in the natural flow of things: “what shall we do next?” In addition to the things we couldn’t fully express in Abyss, we also talked about our brand new ideas for Vesperia. There was a discussion about the visuals too. If I retrace it, that meeting would be the origin point for Vesperia.”
Namco Tales Studios’ Kenji Anabuki talked about the planning of the game, and how integration of scenario and plot come after this period.
“For example, with Vesperia, our initial concept was a game where, even if you suddenly took away the entire story and scenario, the game system itself would still be fun to play,” he said. “We also wanted to shorten the load times between scenes, and in general create a game world that would be easier to enjoy playing. The scenario and plot are two things that don’t enter until that planning is done. The “master plan” for the development gets solidified then too, answering general scheduling questions like how long the project will take, and how many staff it will need.”
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive edition is set for release this winter on Xbox One.