There's always room for more leaks, even in a week as full of leaks as this one has been leading up to E3 2019. A couple of screenshots of Bandai Namco's Tales of Arise have been leaked on 4chan, which could've been dubious, given that website's less than stellar reputation, if not for the confirmation of Daniel Ahmad, a regular and consistent provider of leaks and insider information on games and the games industry, who confirmed the screenshots with a logo on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1137128152470347783
Here's the other screenshot in full detail:
The last Tales of game was Tales of Berseria, release in August 2016, originally on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and later ported to Microsoft Windows. It was a much less graphically impressive game, and Tales of Arise looks quite the step-up in terms of graphical power and detail, as well as a much more interesting art direction, at least from my perspective. It also looks very much like an open-world game, which is a growing trend among Japanese action games and JRPGs.
One of the complaints from critics to Tales of Berseria was precisely that it did not fully utilize the graphical capabilities of the PlayStation 4 at the time of the launch, so it seems Tales of Arise is going all-in on that front, and fans of the series will probably enjoy that upgrade. Since this is the only information leaked so far, we can't extrapolate or speculate about anything but these screenshots. That said, this will be the first Tales game since Hideo Baba left Bandai Namco in 2017 after having produced or directed the series for over a decade.
Bandai Namco has already confirmed to attend E3 2019, where they will show more of games Code Vein, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, Dragon Ball Game Project Z, but this is the first we have heard of Tales of Arise. We'll definitely find out more in the next week or so. Stay tuned to TechRaptor for more coverage of leaks, as well as our on-site and online coverage of the event itself.
What are your thoughts on Tales of Arise? Does it look like a step-up for the franchise? Let us know in the comments below!