Ys Eight: Lacrimosa of Dana, which was originally slated to debut on Steam in mid-September, has been delayed once again. Publisher NIS America announced early this week that the localization overhaul it began in October is a bigger job than expected, and so the game won’t actually be out until sometime in 2018.
Senior associate producer Alan Costa said in a blog post that NIS America is “addressing the localization of Ys Eight from the ground up,” which includes revising the translation with a new translator, a complete re-edit of the script with corrections to item names and descriptions, new voice recordings, and “debugging the new build.” The developers are also seeking “external feedback” on the changes made.
“This is going to come as no surprise to many of you, but after beginning this revision, we have realized that due to the scope of this undertaking, we will unfortunately not be able to release by the end of this month as we had originally intended,” Costa wrote. “I don’t want to throw out a hard date then have to backtrack again, but, barring any unforeseen issues, we are currently looking to get this out early next year.”
He added that, because NIS America wants this to be “the definitive release of the title,” the PC version will be held back as well. “While this does constitute a further delay of the PC version, please rest assured that this time will be used to further optimize the game,” he wrote.
The first delay of Ys Eight came just one day before its scheduled release; localization issues were initially blamed, but this “update and progress report” from mid-October also points a finger at underlying technical problems. Peter “Durante” Thoman came on to help, which resulted in “significant improvements in performance.” But it also led to “an overwhelming number of system issues from both our internal QA Team and our Beta testers,” which NISA said “will take considerable time to repair.”
Thanks, Gematsu.