Bandai Namco celebrated the beginning of 2021 by hinting at an upcoming project that will be one of the most costly in its history. Video games and technology always get more expensive as they get more complicated, but that statement is still rather significant. This is not the publisher of indie darlings, this is the name behind Tekken, Pac-Man, and a whole host of anime-adjacent experiences. This is to say nothing of the fact that they contributed heavily to the last two Super Smash Bros. games, a franchise with some of the most feature-rich releases around. Anything that can top all that is sure to be exciting in one way or another.
Looking over Bandai Namco's recent history, the firm has had a good range of output in 2020. On the anime side of things, there was the much anticipated open-world Goku simulator Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, a sequel to One Piece: Pirate Warriors, and video game translations of Captain Tsubasa and One-Punch Man. Other published games include the disappointing Fast & Furious: Crossroads, the next game in The Dark Pictures Anthology, and Dotnod's Twin Mirror. In a time where many publishers have scaled back their scope, Bandai Namco has remained consistent in its scale over the years.
During the Piro Live! New Year’s Eve Special 2021 that was broadcast for Japanese fans on YouTube, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada told fans that he was working on one of the "most costly development projects in Bandai Namco history." There were no further details about whether it was related to Tekken, a return of a classic franchise, or even something new entirely. However, Harada did mention that the game had only just recently been approved, and he was surprised that it got the greenlight. He also mentioned that it was not going to be a fighting game, which leaves the door wide open for a lot of possibilities.
Whatever Harada is referring to, it will likely be years before players get their hands on it. However, players do know of several new games that will come out of the publisher in the near future. There is Scarlet Nexus, an anime-inspired action RPG that's announced for both previous-gen and current consoles. There's also the delayed releases of both Digimon Survive and Tales of Arise to look forward to for fans of both those franchises. Outside of those and a game based on the relaunch of Zoids, the rest of the 2021 calendar is currently empty. It likely won't stay that way for long.
It's heartening to know that at least one publisher of Bandai Namco's size is putting its weight behind a huge project for the current consoles. The launch of both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 have been somewhat underwhelming in terms of software, with many of the most anticipated titles pushed far into the future. The outlook isn't quite as bad as the previous generation and its years of nothing but ports, but one hopes that it's more than just a handful of companies stretching the limits of what these impressive new pieces of hardware can deliver.
Source: CyberConnect2 - YouTube