Elden Ring DLC is still coming, but Bandai Namco has cancelled a slew of other titles
Elden Ring is back on the minds of fans, and it’s mostly because they have no idea when we can expect the next chapter in the game’s life cycle.
The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has been expected to drop within days of a leak for it to simply refuse to appear, and as Bandai Namco has confirmed that it's still working on the DLC, its release date seems to limp away from us as every day passes.
But, through the facade of game developers happily plugging away at the DLC, there’s something worse peeking through the cracks - and appears to be a bit of a disaster for Bandai Namco.
Bandai Namco axes a collection of games
Click to enlargeA recent earnings call from Bandai Namco has revealed it's reevaluating what helps it to persist as a company, and it seems that in pursuit of following the trends that are keeping it where it is in the industry, it's squashed a big collection of their games that were once in the works.
The financial results briefing revealed that Armored Core 6, Elden Ring and the company’s Dragon Ball and One Piece games were keeping Bandai Namco going, there were a few products that weren’t expected to reach similar financial heights and have since been canned.
“Disposal of work-in-progress was decided in accordance with internal rules regarding evaluation, and the online games and other products subject to this disposal were also implemented in accordance with these rules,” the company revealed during the Q&A section of the call. “We have also decided to discontinue the development of at least five other titles under development and have recorded a loss on disposal.”
Bandai Namco is making big changes to how it approaches game development
Click to enlargeThe company goes on to reveal that after having to can the five mystery games, Bandai Namco is looking to be more careful in choosing what games it decides to greenlight.
“In addition, since the second half of the previous fiscal year, we have changed our development structure, setting stricter standards for proceeding with development, narrowing down titles, and changing the method of recording development expenses. The associated technical research expenses for this were higher than expected at the beginning of the year.”
It’s a huge shame that the games, fuelled by the hard work of developers, have been axed - but here’s hoping that Bandai Namco’s approach stops the canning of games from happening at such a rate again. We can only hope that the games that survived the purge can make it worth it.
