Story of Seasons – Trio of Towns – DLC localisation not guaranteed, may be paid
Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns was released in June last year in Japan, and following that release, Marvelous added quite a bit of additional content via Software updates… for free!
Here’s everything that was added to Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns in Japan, following its release:
- A new bachelor and bachelorette: Stephanie the contest MC and Woofio (+ new resident and romance events for these characters);
- A few new events such as your father coming to visit and getting together with friends of the same gender for a meal;
- The ability to have a child with the game’s secret marriage candidate;
- A new “performer” story (Which are similar to the TV channels in the previous Story of Seasons);
- A new pet, Cheburashka, a Russian cartoon character that has a presence in Japan;
- New costumes, including ones based on Lest and Frey from Rune Factory 4;
- New reaction dialogue for different outfits and pets from bachelors and bachelorettes.
If you’re avidly looking forward to that DLC, XSEED has some bad news for you. Right now, it’s not guaranteed that it will be localised at all, and even if it were, it would be paid (as opposed to the free updates released in Japan).
The reason for that is that the DLC is quite meaty: 200 000 Japanese characters in total, which is almost as much as some full games (XSEED mentions the first Corpse Party, with 210 000 Japanese characters). Also, the last bit of DLC was released in December, after the English version headed to QA. As you can imagine, there was no way they could have included the DLC in the base game without delaying the release by several months.
Localising all the DLC for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns is something the team is still discussing, but one thing’s for sure: it would not be a cheap endeavour. According to John from XSEED, “it would cost upwards of six figures to localize it (over half of which is programming and QA costs)”. That’s almost as much money and manpower as for a full title.
Another thing to take into account: the price of the game. It’s quite cheaper in North America, and it sells roughly twice better in Japan, so Marvelous can definitely afford to release the DLC for free there. For XSEED, it’s simply not possible, but that doesn’t mean the company has given up on releasing the DLC in English altogether (though, as mentioned above, it’s not guaranteed at all).
One possible option would be to release the DLC as paid DLC, with about $3.99 for three patches (Patch 1 and 2 just like in Japan, but with Patch 3 including Patch 3 and 4). Unfortunately, charging for DLC means that they would be unable to unclude Cheburashka (a licenced character)… and even then, it’s not likely they’d get the licence indefinitely.
The reason XSEED is telling us all of this is because they take comments from their fans very seriously, and therefore want to know what they think of those DLC plans. Therefore, you have comments/suggestions, make sure to let XSEED know via social media!
Finally, here’s a couple additional screenshots for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns on Nintendo 3DS:
Source: XSEED
