The Next Tales Remaster Is the Perfect Entry Point to the Beloved RPG Series
Tale as old as time.
In celebration of the Tales series’ 30th anniversary, Bandai Namco has been slowly working on a “remaster project” that seeks to bring some of the classic RPGs to modern consoles and new audiences. Now, by all regards, it looks like Tales of Xillia is the next game to get the remaster treatment, and we might have updates and a release date as early as the end of August. It’s hard to think of a better game to bring back, as Xillia has long been the leanest, meanest Tales entry out there — and the best choice for anyone to jump into the series.
A user on the r/Tales forum noticed that Bandai Namco Europe had accidentally put a “Tales of Series News” video up for a second on YouTube with a premiere date of 8/18, before taking it down. But the thumbnail for the video features a shot from Tales of Xillia, heavily implying it’s going to be the next remaster. It’s all but confirmed when you combine this with a listing that appeared nearly a year ago on European stores for a Tales of Xillia Remastered on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch. Bandai Namco also previously said it would announce the remaster “this summer.”
The leaked thumbnail suggests a Xillia announcement is imminent.
The Tales Remaster Project was first announced in 2024, and while we still don’t completely know the scope of the project, Bandai has said it plans to release remasters “fairly consistently.” Xillia is just the second one we’ve seen after Tales of Graces f Remastered, released in January 2025.
But Graces and Xillia being the first two actually makes perfect sense, as they’re easily the most approachable of the franchise. Graces has a lot of classic elements that make it a kind of comfort food RPG, but Xillia does a fantastic job of distilling everything that makes the Tales games so beloved: an utterly charming ensemble cast, frenetic action combat, a gorgeous art style, and subversive storytelling. Every aspect of the game works in harmony, and even if you’re someone who finds their eyes glazing over from anime-style RPGs, Xillia is probably still a game that’ll appeal to you.
A big part of what makes Xillia work so well is that it’s one of the shortest games in the series — and I mean that as a positive. Tales games are often deliberately slow burns that spend copious amounts of time on world-building and character arcs, but Xillia effectively manages to condense that into a 30 to 50-hour experience. But amazingly, Xillia doesn’t feel like it’s cut short; it still has those vital character moments and dramatic twists, but it’s easily one of the best-paced RPGs you’ll ever play. There’s barely a minute of the game where it feels like things are dragging, and if you want even more, you can get it through Xillia’s dual protagonist system.
Xillia has a strong main cast of characters, who each build complex personal relationships.
Xillia takes place in a fantasy world called Rieze Maxia, where humans and spirits live in harmony. At the beginning of the game, you can choose to focus on one of two protagonists: a young medical student named Jude Mathis or Milla Maxwell, a young woman who’s the incarnation of the lord of spirits. After a chance meeting, these two hapless heroes sabotage a weapon of mass destruction and have to flee officials trying to capture them. It’s a pretty novel setup for a Tales game, and while the main narrative stays the same, the protagonist you follow changes how you see the story, and includes different events.
There’s a strong theme of duality to the story, which is then disseminated directly into gameplay elements, namely, the combat. Xillia uses what’s called the Dual Raid Linear Motion Battle System, an extremely novel system that lets you link your party members together for unique boosts and special combos. You take four characters into battle at any time, which means two links. Every single character combination has its own unique style and attacks, leading to a ton of variety. It also helps that Xillia’s combat feels silky smooth to play, almost like a fighting game in terms of the flow of combos and attacks.
Xillia has arguably the strongest combat system of the entire series, with a unique link system.
When you combine the pacing of the story with the phenomenal combat system, you have an RPG that’s a joy to play in nearly every way. But we’ll have to wait and see what kind of enhancements or changes are made to the remaster. There’s also one major question that’s going to need to be answered — will Tales of Xillia 2 also get remastered? The direct sequel released one year after the first Xillia on PS3, and features a brand-new protagonist and twisty time-travel story, yet doubled down on the already phenomenal combat system.
It seems like an obvious choice would be to remaster both Xillia and Xillia 2 and release them standalone or as a dual-pack, but considering this is only the second game in the Tales Remaster Project, it’s hard to say.
No matter what, though, if you’ve never touched the Tales series, I can’t think of a single better game that highlights what the long-running series is all about — and having it on modern platforms is a more than welcome surprise.
