Tales Of Arise Delayed Indefinitely

Tales of Arise, the next game in the long-running Tales series, has been delayed indefinitely. Bandai Namco explained the move, suggesting that it may be related to workflow changes due to the coronavirus.

Though the blog post from producer Yusuke Tomizawa doesn't explicitly cite the pandemic as the reason for the delay, it goes straight from mentioning those development challenges into the studio needing more time to deliver on its vision. It says a new release date will be announced at a later time.

"While COVID-19 has affected some aspects of development, we've done our best to adapt to the situation and have implemented remote development capabilities for our team," Tomizawa wrote. "However, we will need more time to achieve the quality and provide the gorgeous experience we envision for our players, and therefore we decided to delay the launch timing for Tales of Arise."

Tales of Arise looks like a marked change for the series, as the first trailer that debuted at E3 2019 showed a more action-RPG direction in the vein of Monster Hunter or God Eater. Tomizawa wrote that the studio's goal is "to provide a familiar but innovative gameplay experience to fans of the series, while pushing the technical envelope to deliver a high level of graphical quality."

Tales of Arise is coming PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It had been planned for a 2020 release.