NEO: The World Ends With You is set to release in just a couple of months. The highly anticipated follow-up to the Nintendo DS title The World Ends With You, NEO breaks 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 new TWEWY title remained scarce until earlier this month, when developer Square Enix released a NEO: The World Ends With You release date trailer, which gave fans a peek at the title's expansive cast, gameplay, and more.
Despite the original title being generally well-received, it's taken 14 years for The World Ends With You to 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 given TWEWY'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 on Kingdom Hearts as what prevented a TWEWY sequel from happening sooner.
While an extremely long hiatus by any measure, The World Ends With You franchise is coming back in 2021 in a big way. In addition to NEO's upcoming release, a The World Ends With You anime 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 You launches on July 27 for PC, PS4, and Switch.
Source: IGN