Today Bandai Namco Entertainment released an extensive development diary video about the upcoming action JRPG Sand Land.
The video stars producer Keishu Minami as he introduces the game and several of its aspects.
We learn about some of the locations of the game, including the desert, the Demon village, town ruins, inhabited cities, military bases, and dungeon ruins. We also get to see a small glimpse of each.
The map was designed to be "large enough for the players to really enjoy it" including large dungeons with multiple levels and smaller and medium ones.
Vehicles in the game are customizable, and you can do so with materials coming from ore and treasure chests you'll find in the world. In dungeons, you can find high-grade materials that can be used to develop and enhance vehicle parts.
There are various kinds of dungeons. For instance, one is an aerial battleship that has crashed during the past war. Interestingly, vehicles are required to bypass obstacles in certain dungeons, for instance by destroying them with a tank's cannon.
Interestingly, there is a base camp that our heroes can use, but that will be showcased in another video. That being said, we get to see a store located in the camp where you can buy healing items and materials to upgrade your vehicles.
The game has a main story and subquests that provide the player with more information about the world of the game. When you solve people's problems during the subquests, they will move in and become residents of the camp mentioned above, adding new items to the store as well.
On top of that, they'll open a paint shop where you can customize the look of vehicles and an exchange shop where you can trade items you don't need.
You can watch the full video below.
Interestingly, today we also learn that the anime Sand Land: The Series will air in spring 2024 exclusively on Disney streaming platforms. It's a collaboration between Sunrise, Kamikaze Douga, and Anima. It'll retell and expand the story of the anime film released this year.
Incidentally, it isn't the first anime tied-in with a Bandai Namco game to appear on Disney+. Synduality Noir, which complements the upcoming game Synduality: Echo of Ada, also streams on the same platform.
In case you're unfamiliar with it, Sand Land is inspired by the manga by Akira Toriyama (the creator of Dragon Ball) published on Weekly Shounen Jump in 2000.
If you'd like to see more of the game, which is coming for PS5, PS4, Xbox Serie X|S, and PC via Steam, you can enjoy a previous trailer in English, and Japanese.
