Tales of series lead Yusuke Tomizawa has apologized for the long wait for a new mainline entry in the series.
Bandai Namco's Tales of series has been one of the most consistent RPG series of all time since it kicked off with 1995's Tales of Phantasia. Since then, the series has been an annual release, with occasional one- or two-year gaps. The wait between 2016's Tales of Berseria and 2021's Tales of Arise was the longest in the series history; however, Arise was at least announced in 2019. Come September, it'll have been five years since Arise was released, without any word of what the next game in the series will be.
While the series has been getting consistent releases over the last year and a half thanks to the Tales Remaster Project, which has seen Graces f, Xillia, and Berseria all remastered (with Eternia's remaster releasing this October), Tomizawa, general producer of the series, acknowledged the long wait in an interview with Famitsu (translated by Automaton).
Tomizawa says that one challenge the series faces is the lack of ways for players to get acquainted with older titles in the series, which spurred the remaster project. However, he notes that a new entry living up to expectations is "absolutely essential" and, unfortunately, that, mixed with the ever-increasing development time for AAA games, can be to blame for the long wait.
"The bar has risen when it comes to the scale of development and other factors, and to be honest, we’ve kept players waiting for quite long," Tomizawa explains. He adds, "While we haven’t been able to share concrete information yet, we are continuing to work on it while thinking of the series’ future."
Final Fantasy 14 and 16 director and longtime Square Enix developer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida said earlier this year that the long wait times between entries in the JRPG series has made it somewhat harder for younger players to engage with the series. The first 10 years of Final Fantasy had seven mainline entries released, while 1999-2002 had four mainline entries released in back-to-back years. In comparison, the last 10 years have had two mainline entries.
