Bandai Namco is no stranger to sequels in the Tales series, so it’s baffling that we got DLC instead of a follow-up to Tales of Arise two years after its release. Beyond the Dawn gives players the chance to revisit Alphen, Shionne, Kisara, and more, but it squanders its potential.
Note: Full spoilers ahead for the base Tales of Arise story.
Beyond the Dawn picks up one year after the events of Tales of Arise, immediately spoiling and expecting players to remember what happened with the reunification of Dahna and Rena. This now singular planet offers some new areas to explore but feels a bit too similar to how Dahna looked and seemed in the original release.
Some places change ever so slightly, such as in the case of Viscint, but it is about 90% the same. This leaves out some of the impact of the reunification event, and the storyline only highlights this flaw more. There is a constant mention of the racial problems between the two races of people, but few actual moments actually delve into that. Much of the story in Beyond the Dawn becomes more tell than show in this regard.
The only true hook in the storyline is the new character Nazamil, who has blood from both races. She starts off weary of the main characters initially, as she is uncertain of their intentions due to her life. However, she eventually gets to know them and cares about them as time passes. I like Nazamil as a character, but I feel the game zips through her storyline a bit too quickly, which is unfortunate.
Oddly enough, that sums up my main issue with Beyond the Dawn: it has the chance to fix some of the core flaws with the base game and completely misses the mark. For instance, the entire Rena part of the story felt rushed and incomplete in the base game. In Beyond the Dawn, Nazamil’s storyline and overall plot similarly feels like it didn’t learn from that mistake. It, too, has the same pacing issues.
This is also quite odd since the DLC can take players more than 20 hours to complete. This surprising length results from the expansion’s repetitive and somewhat bland dungeons, such as the Mausoleums you explore and the forgettable side quests. Both of these exist solely to pad out time and don’t contribute much else to the overall experience in terms of excitement or worthy rewards.
Perhaps the oddest part about Beyond the Dawn is how little it changes the gameplay of Tales of Arise. I won’t spoil the story, but there were some character gameplay elements I wanted to see in the base game that were hinted at, which didn’t come true in this DLC. The gameplay is pretty much the same as the core title, except for some new Artes. Making matters worse, the post-game campaign awkwardly requires players to upgrade and unlock Artes which they already purchased in the main story.
Overall, Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn feels like the foundation for a possible sequel that explores Rena and Dahna after they have reunited as a singular planet. However, its DLC format makes it a passable but often uninspired and bloated experience. There is a solid opportunity in here somewhere, but this expansion misses the mark at every turn in the extended storyline.
Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
