Tales of Arise, the next entry in Bandai Namco’s long-running RPG series, comes out next month for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. On August 18, it’ll get a free demo, Bandai Namco announced in a tweet today. A demo that’ll only be available on PlayStation and Xbox. Sorry, PC players. You’re SOL. However, if you’re in a position to check it out, you really should.
Earlier this year, I had a chance to go hands-on with Tales of Arise, where I was dropped into a three-hour stretch in the mid-game. If the demo is anything like that, console players are in for a treat. Longtime series fans in particular will be impressed by how it plays with established formula — a total streamlining of everything from the gear system to how Artes (i.e., skills) work. It’s still Tales, with all the high fantasy hijinks and character-driven banter that implies. It’s just more efficient. Over at Destructoid, Eric Van Allen (formerly of Kotaku) ran through the game’s opening hours. Kotaku wasn’t invited to that preview (sad trombone), but hey, from the outside: still seems great.
What’s more, Tales of Arise is also the first game in the series developed in the Unreal Engine. As you may expect, yes, it’s prettier than ever (and plays more smoothly, too).
Read More: Three Hours With Tales Of Arise
Tales of Arise isn’t the only sprawling Bandai Namco JRPG to receive a demo that slights PC players. In May, the publisher made a demo available for Scarlet Nexus on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. A week later, it became playable on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The demo never made it to PC.
That said, refund policies for PC storefronts tend to be far more lenient than those of their console counterparts. For instance, on Steam, where Scarlet Nexus and Tales of Arise are purchasable, you can generally refund any game you’ve played for less than two hours. Essentially, that’s a demo, provided you pay careful attention to your play clock. (Of course, this workaround doesn’t give you the same early access as a pre-release demo. Still a bit of a snub.)
It’s unclear whether or not a Tales of Arise demo will come to PC before launch. Bandai Namco did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Kotaku. Tales of Arise comes out September 10 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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