A little over two months ago, Koei Tecmo revealed that its city-building JRPG Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World would be releasing in Japan for PC, PS4, PS Vita, and Nintendo Switch on December 13. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case as Keoi Tecmo officially announced via a press release today that Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World has been delayed until January 31, 2019.
As for the reasoning behind this brief delay, Koei Tecmo provided the somewhat standard response of apologizing and saying they wanted to improve the quality of and polish parts of the game further before releasing it to the public. That being said, it’s still a completely fair response regarding a delay in an age of broken launches.
While this delay will probably disappoint Japanese fans looking forward to Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World, in the end they’ll probably be more satisfied with a better final product. For those who haven’t heard about Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World, it takes the Atelier franchise in a different city-building direction. Players take control of the titular Nelke von Lestamm, who is not an Alchemist despite really wanting to be one.
Throughout the game, she develops her village of Westwald in order to uncover the hidden but sacred Granzweit Tree. Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World will also serve as a crossover of sorts for the Atelier franchise, as characters from the Salburg, Dusk, Mysterious and Arland will pop up through the game as well.
If you want to know more about the state of the franchise as a whole, including Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World, you can check out DualShockers’ interview with series producers Producers Keisuke Kikuchi and Junzo Hosoi. DualShockers has also reached out to Koei Tecmo America about the status of Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World’s western release after the delay, and will update you when they respond.
For now, we know that Gust’s Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World will be releasing for PC, PS4, PS Vita and Nintendo Switch on January 31 in Japan, and its western release can still be pre-ordered on Amazon.
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