'Tales Of Berseria' Gets New Character, Trailer & 2016 Release Window

Tales of Berseria Velvet — A screen shot shows "Tales of Berseria" protagonist Velvet during a "Tales of" festival in Japan. http://www.abyssalchronicles.com/

After announcing “Tales of Berseria” in a “Tales of” anniversary show, Bandai Namco has unveiled that the game will have a 2016 release window. The company has also revealed a new character and released a brand new trailer of the game, which runs for two minutes and 30 seconds.

The aforementioned new character -- who can be seen in the trailer below -- is called Lyfesette. He is a young boy who will supposedly play an important part of the story, supporting protagonist Velvet while also being her polar opposite. Velvet was created in the image of shadow, while Lyfette was made in the image of light, according to Gematsu.

To drive the point home about Lyfette being filled with light, his character design has a halo-shaped string of fair to go with his gospel-themed costume. It’s far from subtle, but it does make the character look somewhat unique compared to the other characters.

While light and darkness will be a big part of the game it won’t be the main theme, which is “Emotion and Reason” apparently. The world of “Berseria” is filled with characters that use reason over emotion, except for Velvet who happens to be full of strong emotions. Her interactions with characters should be interesting, especially when they explain why they would join her in the story.

Siliconera has also confirmed that the game will have an evolved combat system, which takes the action-oriented approach of the previous games, but adds free run character control. Previous games in the series – while action packed – were still a bit menu-driven, which doesn’t appear to be the case with “Berseria,” which adds free camera control and Artes techniques assigned to a single button press.

Near the end of the trailer, fans can see some of the combat in action, which looks more fluid than ever. Velvet does some very fast combos on the ground and in the air, plus her giant shadow arm looks like it will cause plenty of carnage.

“Tales of Berseria” is currently in development for the PS4 and PS3. No official release date has been given and it’s not yet known if it will be released outside of Japan.