Bandai Namco's Past and Future
There is a lot to look forward to in 2020, two new consoles are on the horizon, which means new titles for them, but as we get to the tail end of the two they are replacing, games are getting bigger and bolder, as developers have learnt how to leverage all the power and technical know-how from them, to craft worlds the demand to be enjoyed. So, let’s take a look at what we have to look forward to for 2020 from Bandai Namco.
There is no quiet way to say it, but Bandai Namco had a massive 2019, they published almost 20 titles, that averages one every two and bit weeks, which is insane. Of course, as the house that anime built, most of their games had a connection to an anime series, or manga of some kind, but there were still a number of original titles that they had as well.
They kicked off the year with the release of the remaster of a classic Tales game, which had many fans happy, but they followed that up with Ace Combat 7, a completely different genre, but again, a title that made many fans happy. After that we got a series of anime/manga inspired titles, from God Eater to Sword Art Online and of course, Jump Force was in there, which just about crammed every popular character from manga into a single game.
It was after the middle of the year when things changed and we were seeing more original content, with the release of RAD from Double Fine and soon after the first title in the planned Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan, from the folks at Supermassive Games. It was soon after that they re-released Ni No Kuni on PlayStation 4 and PC with the excellent remaster, while Switch gamers got a port of the original, then with their own take on the Souls formula coming soon after with Code Vein.
The rest of the year saw a few more Switch titles added, with Doraemon: Story of Seasons and Disney Tsum Tsum Festival, but there was some Gundam mixed in there as well on PlayStation. 2019 for Bandai Namco is easily summed up as a year where they released a lot of games, an impressive amount, but most of them contained characters we had seen before and so far, 2020 is shaping up to be the same.
2020 actually kicks off for Bandai Namco with the release of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, which is sure to have some gamers excited for it, soon after it though, we shall see the release of One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows and then My Hero One’s Justice 2, giving us a triple dose of anime related games, oh and One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 is releasing in the early part of the year as well, bring the number of anime based titles to four.
Actually, we are at five, as the next chapter in the Sword Art Online saga, Alicization Lycoris will release in May and give players another chance to play as Kirito, with the game coming out a few months past the end of the anime.
Past that, we know very little about the release schedule for 2020, it would be ok to assume that the second chapter of the Dark Pictures series will release, but when is up for debate, there is an argument for the same day as last year’s chapter, but that is unlikely.
Dontnod, the studio behind the Life is Strange series are creating Twin Mirror, but that is currently just 2020, no specific date, which is the same for Tales of Arise, the next chapter in the popular Tales saga. Digimon Survive is also coming in 2020, but the game has been silent since it was announced and was initially planned for a 2019 release, so anything could happen there.
The only other title we know about is Elden Ring, which is being created by FromSoftware and George R.R. Martin, who is known for his book series a A Song of Ice and Fire, or Game of Thrones if you only watched the show. Very little is known about the game, only really that Hidetaka Miyazaki considers the game to be a natural extension of the Dark Souls series and that development started in 2017. The game is not currently slated for a 2020 release but getting a date for either the end of the year or early 2021 is likely at E3 2020.
As we are getting games from the One Piece, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man and Dragon Ball series in the first few months, the only real big-name left is Naruto, and as it has been a few years, they might have something in the works. Of course, they could surprise us with a new anime adaptation, it just depends on what shows inspire them, given on average around 20-30 shows debut everything 3 months, they are not limited in choice.
They had previously been publishing the Project Cars series, but the studio has now been bought out by Codemasters, but before that took place, they did sign a deal with the same studio to bring the Fast and Furious series to consoles with Crossroads, which looks to be part racer and part open world, so expect that later in the year.
Bandai Namco are the one constant year on year, you can always expect to see a deluge of anime inspired content, but they also have a strong back catalogue which they could pull from. They have done publishing duties on a number of games that might not seem like their normal wheelhouse, but those are usually surprises we can’t predict, but there is a lot of fun in trying.
