Fans have been anxiously awaitingTales of Arisefor some time now, ever sinceits highly-anticipated reveal all the way back at E3 2019. Several new trailers and all sorts of details have come to light in the intervening two years, and the most recent announcement from Bandai Namco looks to focus on one of the game’s brand new characters.
Bandai Namco officially revealed a new character introduction trailer yesterday, focusing on main character Shionne in a video that’s part action-packed gun-fu and part quiet story-telling. The trailer describes her as “a long-range gunslinger who also uses Astral Artes, letting her heal the party between shots,” and her affinity with a firearm is evident inTales of Arise’s single-playercombat sequences.
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The brief glimpses of combat are interspersed throughout a longer scene, showing Shionne seemingly captured by a group of Dahnans who conveniently explain the nature of the strange, electrifying thorns that prevent her from touching anyone without causing them pain. That curse doesn’t seem to botherfellowTales of Arisemain character Alphen, though, who appears to be lost for words at the end of the trailer by the sight of Shionne descending towards him in full noble regalia.
Whether fans are watching for the story or the gameplay, though, it’s hard to deny thatTales of Ariseis looking beautiful ahead of its September 10th launch. The developers are clearlymaking the most of the shift to Unreal Engine 4, with character models looking impressively detailed and all sorts of particle effects flying around the place during battle. With this newest trailer, it’s more obvious than ever that modern consoles and hardware are at the forefront of the development process.
Talesfans have waited a long time for this next entry in the series, especially followingthe announcement of its delay to 2021 last summer. It’s arguably been a good thing, though: the team at Bandai Namco have made it clear that they’re putting a lot of love intoTales of Ariseto make it the best game it can possibly be.
With an extra year of development time, hopefully they’ve been able to strike the right balance betweenbringing over key elements of theTalesseriesand leaving some of the more dated ones behind. At the very least, this latest character-focused trailer proves that the kind of interesting and multi-layered protagonists fans have come to expect fromTalesgames are present and correct in the newest addition to the series.
Tales of Arisewill come to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on September 10th, 2021.