Yusuke Tomizawa has explained why Bandai Namco decided to make the next Tales game a single-player experience altogether.

„So this game is a standalone game where one person enjoys the drama and the overall story of the game, we don’t have any plans currently for a multiplayer mode, but on the other side, we did put a lot of focus on how the characters work together and how they cooperate in the battle and how that plays out in [the] game’s mechanics,” Tomizawa told IGN. That sounds like a reasonable approach.

Tomizawa also mentioned that previously, the game could have been an open-world title. He explained why they ended up going with the linear approach: „We did debate whether to go with an open-world concept or a linear concept. This was something in the early stages we really had a back and forth debate about. We ran tests simulating both situations and ultimately, we decided that, as we mentioned, for reasons that we want the players to focus, we went with the linear option. We thought this was the best way for players to enjoy what Tales of Arise is all about. Again, the story, character development, all that good stuff, we thought that was the best way to deliver that gameplay to the player.” And seeing how a certain pandemic has been affecting many games’ development, it’s better to stick with linear. Otherwise, the game would have had an empty open world.

Bandai Namco has recently announced (even in the embedded video below) that Tales of Arise will launch in Japan on September 9, followed by the Western release on September 10 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The PlayStation 4 > PlayStation 5 upgrade will be free.

Source: PSL