NEO: The World Ends With Youis set to release in just a couple of months. The highly anticipated follow-up to the Nintendo DS titleThe World Ends With You,NEObreaks a longstanding silence on the Square Enix IP. However, fans are largely confused on why such a long gap between franchise entries occurred in the first place.
The sophomore entry to the 2007 RPG series was first announced on the game’s official website last November following a weeklong countdown. News on the newTWEWYtitle remained scarce until earlier this month, when developer Square Enix released aNEO: The World Ends With Yourelease date trailer, which gave fans a peek at the title’s expansive cast, gameplay, and more.
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Despite the original title being generally well-received, it’s taken 14 years forThe World Ends With Youto get a sequel. An IGN interview with the new game’s producer Tomohiko Hirano reveals that while plans have been in place for some time, the development team needed to “secure an environment” to facilitate their vision. Hirano elaborates that givenTWEWY’s “out there” content, his team wanted to ensure a sequel was “something totally new” rather than attach a different plot with the same elements.
Developing a new combat system was also required, with the DS' dual-screens integral to how the first game played. The director of the series, Tatsuya Kando, also cites work onKingdom Heartsas whatprevented aTWEWYsequel from happening sooner.
While an extremely long hiatus by any measure,The World Ends With Youfranchise is coming back in 2021 in a big way. In addition toNEO’s upcoming release, aThe World Ends With Youanime premiered a few weeks ago. Interestingly,the anime’s intro theme was changed last minute, due to the band behind the original song’s drummer getting arrested for alleged bank fraud.
NEO: The World Ends with Youlaunches on July 27 for PC, PS4, and Switch.
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