Did the Not-E3 showcases ever really end?

We had a few showcases last week and Anime Expo coming up later this week, and now in between we also have the Bandai Namco Summer Showcase announced for this Wednesday.

The showcase will be held on July 2 at 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET. It will feature a new My Hero Academia game and a bunch of already-announced games (including Code Vein II and Little Nightmares III), but could there be other surprises as well?

I’ve been patiently waiting for the announcement of a new Tales game from Bandai Namco, and this could be the place where we learn about a new remaster.

After all, they already said the next Tales remaster will be announced this summer. That makes a summer showcase feel like a pretty likely choice.

On top of that, the official Tales Twitter account posted on May 19 about the first three games in the series in honor of the 30th anniversary, and every week since then they’ve posted about the next few games in order, until today’s post about Xillia 2, Zestiria, Berseria, and Arise. Setting up these posts to end right ahead of the summer showcase also feels like it’s perfectly preparing for the next game’s announcement.

I love the Tales series (even if I still have a ton of them in my backlog), and I’ve been excited to see what they’ll announce next. Personally, I have my fingers crossed that the next remaster is a Japan-exclusive title getting translated for the first time, but we’ll see.

Do you think the Bandai Namco Summer Showcase will include Tales news?

Not only do we have a couple showcases coming up this week, but next week is Anime Expo, where we’re sure to get a few announcements as well.

At the top of the list for me is Aksys Games confirming an Anime Expo show on July 3 that will include upcoming games and “a few new surprises.”

Aksys is a big one for me because of the otome games they localize (as well as others, like the Death Mark games). Last year, their Anime Expo show featured the announcements of Mistonia no Kibou, Utaka no Uchronia (which now has the English title Illusion of Itehari), and the Switch port of 7’scarlet.

7’scarlet is out, and Illusion of Itehari has a September 18 release date, so that leaves Mistonia as the big unknown right now. Maybe we’ll get a release date for it, as well.

I also have my fingers crossed for more otome localization news. Personally I’d love to see Over RequiemZ or Byakko get picked up, although if they don’t, you never know when Idea Factory might announce some new otome localizations, too. (Last year, Idea Factory has their own event around the same time as Anime Expo, but I haven’t seen anything announced like that yet this time.)

In non-otome news, it would be nice if the new Death Mark DLC was brought to Steam, since that’s the version of the game I have… and of course, they might have some complete surprises, too.

What are you hoping to see announced at Anime Expo?