Bandai Namco have published a video with Tales producer Hideo Baba speaking at length with regard to the development of the series.

I’ve picked some of the most interesting answers to questions thrown at Baba-san, the first of which is about open world games in the vein of Skyrim:

“The Tales of franchise has a very long history and I really want to keep developing this kind of JRPG to keep the history going. But outside of the Tales of series, I’d like to try and make an open-world fantasy game similar to Dragon’s Dogma or Skyrim in the future, something brand new.”

Next up, Baba was asked for his thoughts on the Tales series making its way to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One:

“I believe the next-gen consoles such as PlayStation 4 or Xbox One have big improved potential, but I really don’t want to focus on improved graphics when considering the future of the Tales of series.”

He continued, talking about the visuals in the Tales games and how they relate to the storyline and characters:

“The Tales of series focuses on the characters and the storylines. Of course, we can utilize the improved graphics, but we really want to focus on improved storyline and more interesting characters. I really want to consider first the unique characters and world of the game and not necessarily how to utilize new and improved graphics.”

Would you guys like to see an open world Tales game, in the same fashion as western RPGs?