It has been four months since Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom released, and for most, the milestone means very little. A chance to reflect on what are most likely positive memories of a lovely JRPG experience, sure, but with the year's biggest hitters on the horizon, a look to the past may not be what most of you had in mind. However, for a select few, the date represents yet another sticking point for the game's most dedicated of followers in a battle for information against publisher Bandai Namco. Alongside the base game, a season pass priced at £15.99/$19.99 was sold alongside Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, and not a single bit of that promised content has been delivered upon or even detailed four months after release.
The PlayStation Store listing states that season pass purchasers will gain access to expansion packs as soon as they're available. "Explore new dungeons, get exclusive rewards, and enjoy a brand new story chapter with hours of additional gameplay at a discount."
The way this description is worded would suggest that multiple content drops are in the works, with side content such as new dungeons making up one piece of DLC, and another meatier piece of content taking the form of a story-based expansion. We're sure these downloads are still in the works, but to not have even the slightest idea of when they'll release is worrying at this point.
The recent 1.03 update that added new difficulty levels was the perfect opportunity for developer Level 5 to detail what fans can expect in terms of paid content alongside a free update for all players, but again, the matter wasn't spoken of. In fact, both Bandai Namco and Level 5 almost seem to be refusing to talk about the subject at all. Doing a quick search on Twitter brings up a steady stream of tweets from season pass purchasers aimed at the publisher that questions the whereabouts of any additional DLC, and not a single one of them has received a response. This is an interesting tactic from a Twitter page that regularly engages with the community if its US account is anything to go by.
Are you one of those few that feels shortchanged by this season pass that has failed to deliver on any of its promises? Expand on your thoughts in the comments below.
Comments 44
Had no idea about this to be honest. They really should have delivered a roadmap by now.
Damn, no clue when DLC story coming out. this game is incredible ever i played
I think this is a new experience but if nothing is delivered dare I see demanded refunds coming or legal action coming?
At least the other "Season Passes you buy upfront" like ones from Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo etc. Net you something immediately so you know they are working on stuff.
Like hell, 4 months with no updates whatsoever, not even rough estimates on dates?
This is really strange. Reminds me of that article on banned pre-orders from last week!
I bought the game 2 weeks ago, am now 30h in. I'm not really enjoying it I think, I don't even know what to see, I keep playing but the combat and the story feel weird.
Lol it didn't sell well enough so Bandai pulled the plug and kept it moving
@Athrum Absolutely agree. After all the good reviews I was excited to play this but so far disappointed. I miss the Pokémon like creatures of the original.
Buying a season pass is just a big lucky dip bag, except you have to wait a long time to find out what it is you actually got. Good deal? Hell no.
This is not the only time Bandai did something shady this year. When Seven Deadly Sins Knights of Britannia was close to its release, the devs confirmed that the game will be receiving Season 2 DLC characters. It's been 5-6 months, and we still haven't gotten a single word about those characters.
This is exactly why I did not buy the season pass. I had a feeling that content wouldn't see the light of day. When you co sider the release date delays and the lack of marketing for the game I don't think the publishers had too much faith in this title. I enjoyed playing it though.
Season pass is a mistake, publishers should sells the content when its available on psn.
Shame that some game companies can do this and get away with it.
uncharted 4 lost legacy expansion released close to a year after the base game... nobody complained, really. i would just give it some more time, i'm sure they are cooking something up. unless sales were horrendous for ni no kuni 2 and they want to pull the plug (in which case they would need to refund people), i don't see a problem with being secretive. i suppose they could at the very least tell the community they are working on something and end it there.
I had forgotten their even was Season Pass
@Porco I agree!
Now I think that season passes are stupid to begin with, but if you've paid for something without a set release date, you can't really complain if it's not out yet. Maybe it'll take another year, who knows? Don't buy season passes if you're worried about that.
Rediculous. I’ve never seen quite such a ludicrous DLC problem in this way. Did they just decide to figure it out later and now aren’t sure what to do?
@Porco Did people pay for Lost Legacy the day Uncharted 4 came out? That was also a stand-alone. This is $20 people have already payed and need to know what for.
Poor customer service from the developers then.
@Jaz007 yes, there was a pre-order for uncharted 4 with the season pass, which included online mp content and what would eventually turn out to be the lost legacy expansion. naughty dog didn't even know what the dlc was going to be at this point; all they said was "it will be a while" (until we get news on it) and that they started working on it AFTER uncharted 4 was released. heck, they didn't even know at this point what direction to go in with the expansion and they were still brainstorming ideas... the takeaway from all this is: pre-ordering something runs you the risk of not knowing what you are going to get. anyone in that position doesn't really have the right to complain in my opinion. for those who don't like it: stop pre-ordering season passes would be my suggestion.
i personally stopped pre-ordering games altogether (there are a few exceptions) and just wait a year for the complete edition at less than half the price of the base game at launch
@Porco I didn’t know that, but were any of the MP maps out or announced by now? This is an abnormally long time. The devs aren’t even saying they’re working o it as a responses then.
And yes, there might be some risks involved without having release dates, but company’s shouldn’t abuse the trust given to them.
30 hours into the game after buying it for $35 on Newegg a couple of weeks ago, just finished Hypropolis last night, and I fully expect to finish it and trade it in before the season pass releases. And I'm not too terribly upset by that. Game is ok, it's fun, tries a few new things, but I'm not into it enough to need to pay $20 more at some point in the future.
They really are hurting themselves now though with no info and the wall of silence. Do they think people will pay for DLC up front in the future after being treated like this? I don't think anybody was too concerned before E3 - lots of DLC news at E3 this year - but now that E3 has been over for a month people are getting vocal.
NNK3 will be a tough sell if they dont' figure this out. I dont' know much about Bandia Namco but I've always liked Level 5's work, can't believe they haven't been giving weekly updates about the DLC themselves on social media somewhere. Too quiet for too long. At least say "Gamescon" or something.
Good, maybe now people will think twice before paying blindly for season passes.
I like the game. It has a fun charm to it and the cutscenes are animated really nice. I just don't like that there's no real upgrade system for each character and instead you just get a menu that toggles things one way or another.
I do like the combat a lot more in this game compared to the first.
Even though I'm enjoying my time with the game, I probably won't touch the any of the post launch DLC. Shame the devs and Bandai have to be like this. It's like they want to forget about the game. Or at least Bandai.
@Jaz007 the mp maps rolled out within a few months i believe, so the wait wasn't too bad on that front. but yea, i agree that level 5 should at least confirm that they are working on sometime (even as vague as that) — a tiny communication update would calm people down.
@Cornaboyzzz i gotta agree with you there. but i would take it a step further and apply that mentality to the base games as well.
See I wonder if it hasn't sold well so.dlc is on hold?
I haven't bought the game because of the season pass. I don't play games until "finished"
Unacceptable. Most video game problems are blown way out of proportion but this is actually something that absolutely need to be fixed and to never happen again. It's not only an insult, but should at the very least be illegal.
@Alexface according to this article it was 900,000 in May, And i have bought it since so its at least 900,001 🙂 with sales recently, i expect it has done at least a million
https://www.dualshockers.com/ni-no-kuni-ii-shipped-900000-copies-worldwide-series-passed-2-8-million-units/
Wouldnt pay in advance for any prepaid
, upcoming DLC for anything again .... still waiting on Blues n Bullets Part 3 (of 5) which has obviously been cancelled (with zero refund)! How can u offer a product then cancel it and deliver only 40% of the product advertised without issuing a full refund?
For those of you up on your high horse about how you never preorder season passes and people who bought this are dumb, consider this:
Here in the US there was no way to purchase the collector’s edition without also purchasing the season pass. So for someone like myself who was genuinely excited for this release and wanted to support the developer by going all in on the collectors edition I’m now stuck with a $20 IOU. Talk about “goodwill”.
I’d sooner use someone’s arse as a cereal bowl before Bamco sees another cent from me.
I suppose they should at least give some sort of rough estimate but at least we can't complain about it being cut content. More likely they started working on it after they were done with the base game and want to announce something when it's more concrete.
The season pass was included with my collector's edition but I'm in no rush for the DLC, I'm sure it'll come out eventually and the game was complete (unlike FFXV).
I wouldn't have bought the season pass separately until there were details though, that's kinda silly/unnecessary.
well the first expansion for sword art hollow realization came 7 months after release without any communication so this doesn't seem all that odd from Bamco.
I don't know whats the difference between being patient and being a sucker?
As a huge JRPG fan this game was so disappointing, even more so when you consider that the original is one of the very best games I've ever played. As for the season pass this is very strange in a world of cut content/day one dlc, hopefully this makes it more worthwhile for those who purchased when it finally arrives
@carlos82 what did you find disappointing about it? I still haven't bought it and I'd like to know what to expect.
I dont understand season passes for games like this usually play it for a few weeks till I complete it or had enough of it. I would find it hard to go back to the game a few months later just for a couple hours of gameplay as I would of moved onto different games. I presume at least one of them is cut content. As there is one continent that's quite big that you never go to in the story and has something huge in the middle of it and there is no explanation of what it is or how it got there.
@Athrum Wrath of the White Witch is one of my favorite games of all time. Did not enjoy this one at all. They completely botched what everyone loved of the first game.
As per usual with season pass content it'll end up on sale before its all released and thus screwing over early adopters. Yay.
@naruball I think my problem is that every time I played it I just wish I was playing the first game instead, the characters were better in that particularly Drippy. The battle system is more action orientated but feels fairly generic and was never engaging for me, I know many don't like turn based anymore but I'm still a huge fan and the lack of the Pokemon style familiars is a big loss, not just in battle but as a reason to fully explore the world looking for rare beasts. As you can tell most of my problems are because the first game exists and to me it feels like with the first they made the game they wanted and it perfectly encapsulated what made those great 16/32 bit JRPG's so special where as with the sequel it almost felt like checking boxes to make it appeal to an apparent wider audience, luckily Octopath Traveller has no such problems and the devs have even said that they just made a game they would like to play rather and were surprised to find out that people in the west liked that type of game too
Here's a bit of common sense, STOP PRE ORDERING DLC SEASON PASSES! It's not like they can run out of digital codes therefore pre ordering dlc is just idiotic. Pre ordering games is already idiotic, but if you are pre ordering DLC that hasn't even been announced yet, let alone a bundle of dlc that may possibly be canceled, then you really need to rethink your priorities in life.
@carlos82 I see. Thanks.
@malbhet ...
@SomeDonkus I summon thee...
I-I... won't give up hope yet!
But... I bet they are pulling a FFXV stunt on us...
@Alexface That Extinction game that came out around the same time I'm sure definitely didn't sell well, yet two of its three DLCs that was listed for its season pass has already come out. Though, granted, I have no idea how "meaty" said DLC is, as I've yet to come across any footage or anyone's experiences with it - it sold that badly, apparently.
This only just occurred to me a few days ago. I was going through my collection and suddenly realized I'd paid for this expansion pass and had zero content to show for it. I'm hoping the content is still coming, but if it isn't I want a refund asap
@Kafkaesque I'll be scared too if it didn't come.
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