A New Tale May Be in the Works
Bandai Namco’s Tales of series turns out some of the best, most entertaining, and most unexpectedly powerful JRPGs out there. Tales of Symphonia is a classic, of course, but Tales of the Abyss hits just as hard if you’re willing to take a chance, and Tales of Vesperia is one of my all-time favourite games. Each of them goes the extra mile and tackles themes you wouldn’t expect from a colorful anime-style brawler: limited resources, systemic corruption, how easy it is to sit back and let authority figures tell you what to do even as the world slips into damnation. So needless to say, we’re very excited about the possibility of a new Tales of game. On October 13th, Bandai Namco trademarked Tales of Luminara in Europe. Though they don’t seem to have done the same in Japan, this is the first major sign of the company working on a game other than Tales of Arise. If you have any idea what Luminara might be about, we want to hear from you.
Speaking of Tales of Arise, we’ve got news on it, too. After being delayed indefinitely on account of the global pandemic, Arise has surfaced again–in Australia, of all places. The game has been rated in Australia by Bandai Namco as of August 19, 2020, and even earlier in Brazil. This may indicate that Bandai Namco will be releasing Tales of Arise in 2021. The game will likely be submitted closer to launch, but at present, we can anticipate some of its content based on the content warnings.
Right now, Arise is looking at a moderate impact for “themes” and “violence”, a mild impact for “language”, a “none” classification for “drug use” and “nudity”, and a very mild impact classification for “sex”. That seems a bit light for a game which appears to be examining the scars of colonization, but we’ll see how it turns out.
Are you excited for a new Tales of game? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.