As the end of this year descends, developers and publishers are waving goodbye to 2020 and looking forward to the year ahead. The Tales series producer - who represents Namco Tales Studio - wanted to share Bandai Namco’s hopes for the future, by promising “wonderful news in the new year”.

Speaking during the Tales of Series 25th Anniversary Special Live Stream, producer Yusuke Tomizawa talked about ambiguous updates that would be coming in 2021. The producer also wanted to share a positive update on the development of Tales of Arise - the next chapter of the Tales series which is also due to arrive next year. While there was no new information shared about the latest chapter, Tomizawa confirmed that development was “going very well” - despite the various setbacks that faced the industry this year.

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Tomizawa confirmed that development on Tales of Arise did continue amidst the pandemic, however, the team’s slow progression didn’t allow for any new information to arise. The producer also took time during the stream to apologies to fans for being “quiet” this past year, and for not having anything new to share at the present time. Details may have been kept to a minimum, but Tomizawa mentioned that the Tales series was using this year and next to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The producer assured fans that the second half of those celebrations will “blow the first half out of the water”.

While the team was relatively silent this year, Tomizawa stated that this was because they were “preparing all sorts of wonderful news”, which Tales fans from all over the world should be excited for. In order to compensate for this year's disappointments, Tomizawa promised that Bandai Namco was organizing “some really fun things” to make up for it. With Tales of Arise in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, we are hoping that one of those announcements will be a release date.

Tales of Arise got hit with an indefinite delay back in June by Bandai Namco, due to the pandemic restrictions. Covid-19 obliterated the online action-RPG’s original 2020 release window, but at least Tomizawa confirmed that development slowly continued through the chaos.

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