The trademark was filed in Europe earlier today and is currently being examined by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The trademark could mean that Bandai is working on a sequel to last year’s Tales of Arise. It could also be related to an expansion for the action RPG. Last year, however, the game’s developers did state that there are no plans for a direct sequel or an expansion. This could mean that this trademark is related to an indirect sequel or prequel to Tales of Arise. As always, this new trademark doesn’t necessarily confirm the existence of an expansion or sequel of some sort, but we wanted to share it nonetheless. We’ll update you as soon as more information regarding the Tales series comes in. Tales of Arise was released last year for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Here’s what we wrote about the game in our review: Together with the two display modes, the PlayStation 5 version also supports haptics via the Dual Sense controller. Haptics are used both during cutscenes and gameplay and their implementation is far from the best we have seen so far on PS5. It does help to make players feel what is happening during certain sequences, so they are still welcome. The soundtrack also contributes quite a bit to the game’s excellent atmosphere. Composed by long-time series’ composer Motoi Sakuraba, the Tales of Arise soundtrack features tons of orchestral and atmospheric pieces, with the composer mostly doing away with the prog-rock influenced sound that has characterized the series’ soundtrack for a while now. The addition of dynamic tracks in select dungeons also makes the whole sound production feel more coherent. Tales of Arise does also feature both English and Japanese dub, and both are of very high quality. Being faithful while managing to innovate some of the series’ staples is Tales of Arise’s greatest achievement. Although it’s only the combat mechanics that do feel different, Bandai Namco has done a terrific job addressing some of the criticism of previous entries in the series, laying a solid groundwork for future innovations. At the end of the day, Tales of Arise may not be the best entry in the series, but it gets quite close to it.
