Highlights
- Microsoft has seemingly leaked that Bandai Namco's RPG Tales of Arise is coming to Xbox Game Pass.
- The premature reveal was included in the title of the company's latest article detailing Xbox Game Pass additions for February 2024.
- The mention of Tales of Arise was promptly removed from the announcement.
Microsoft has seemingly shared a premature confirmation that Tales of Arise is coming to Xbox Game Pass. The untimely reveal, which was promptly pulled from the web, was included in the announcement of the next wave of Xbox Game Pass titles scheduled to hit the service throughout February.
The move saw Microsoft reiterate that the culinary-themed roguelite PlateUp would soon be added to its subscription catalog. The company also revealed half a dozen other titles coming to Xbox Game Pass in February.
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Microsoft Said Tales of Arise Is 'Coming Soon' to Xbox Game Pass
But one thing that caught some fans' attention was the mention of Tales of Arise in the very title of the announcement, which was originally posted on Xbox Wire. While the heading was promptly changed, a cached version of the February 6 post confirms that Microsoft has indeed name-dropped Bandai Namco's action RPG in its coming-soon article, as originally spotted by Reddit user baiisun.
The latest entry in the almost three-decade-long Tales franchise was released for PC and non-Nintendo consoles in September 2021. Tales of Arise received widespread critical acclaim, as underlined by the fact that its Metacritic Metascore currently ranges between 82 and 87 (out of 100), depending on the platform. Likewise, the Steam version of the RPG presently boasts 'Very Positive' reviews, based on almost 24,000 user ratings. Following some mixed messaging on the matter, Bandai Namco decided to keep supporting the game with DLC, the last of which, Beyond The Dawn, was released in November 2023.
With Tales of Arise now seemingly being content-complete, this would ostensibly be a good time to boost its visibility and potentially help its DLC sales by bringing it to a service like Xbox Game Pass, which is estimated to have surpassed 33 million subscribers as of year-end 2023. Whether that actually ends up being the case remains to be seen, although this slip-up by Microsoft certainly looks like a strong indicator that one of the best JRPGs on Xbox consoles could soon be making its way to Game Pass.
Coincidentally, this isn't the first piece of evidence suggesting Bandai Namco's 2021 RPG is eyeing a spot in Microsoft's subscription catalog. Even before the game itself hit the market, Australia-based leaker Nick "Shpeshal Nick" Baker suggested that Tales of Arise could launch on Xbox Game Pass back in May 2021. While that prediction hasn't come to pass, it was also made at a time when Bandai Namco was still insisting that the game wouldn't get any DLC. The reversal of that decision could have delayed the Japanese gaming giant's plans for an Xbox Game Pass release, assuming they existed in the first place.
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