With the release of Tales of Arise, several Japanese gaming media outlets published extensive coverage on the new game. One of the outlets 4Gamer had an interview with the Tales Of series general producer Yusuke Tomizawa. In one of the segments, they specifically talked about the series’ future after Arise.
When Tomizawa was appointed as the new general producer for the Tales Of series 5 years ago, there was no logo for the series brand nor a foundation to learn about the history of past titles. So he addressed the situation by doing things like holding a symposium with developers of past series titles. Tomizawa also used his experience from managing the God Eater series to closely interact with fans and directly listen to their feedback.
The interview also covered Tomizawa’s decision to change the series’ categorization in February 2020. Back then, the series used to have titles grouped into Mothership, Escort, and Mobile. However, this ended up making some of the titles with original characters overlooked because they were not categorized as Mothership. Tomizawa decided to recategorize the games into Original and Crossover so that all new games that feature original characters and storylines will be properly recognized.
The most important question came when 4Gamer asked Tomizawa about the release pace for another new game after the 5-year gap between Berseria and Arise. We have translated Tomizawa’s answer as follows:
I understand that there are requests to enjoy [the games] on consoles, so I want to regularly release those softwares. However, if we only do that, the content would end up drying out, so I’m thinking of combining them with continuously managed smartphone apps.
I can’t say it specifically at the current phase, but I’m also thinking of responding to requests for remakes and remasters. It can’t be said as a brand if there is nothing at all between Arise and the next brand-new game. It’s because being able to continuously enjoy Tales of Festivals and movies in-between titles is also an appeal point from Tales Of as a character brand.
When asked for more clarification about the last sentence, Tomizawa added that there are fans of the series who are more into the games and their gameplay systems, and thus never visit the Tales of Festivals which are usually more focused on the characters. He would like to consider holding events or talk shows that focus more on gameplay tips and behind-the-scenes talks to entice them to watch.
Tales of Arise has just been released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X in Japan and Asia. The Western releases, including the global PC release via Steam, will be available tomorrow on September 10. You can read our review for Tales of Arise to see how we think about the latest Tales Of original game.
The most recent series remaster released by Bandai Namco is Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, which came out on January 11, 2019, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
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