Tower of Fantasy Confirms 2022 Global Release

In news absolutely nobody was expecting – seriously, after the monumental failure during its launch month it’d be ludicrous to suspect otherwise, it turns out Perfect World and Hotta Studios have spent time in deep contemplation concerning what having a globally accessible MMO would mean for them.

Money. Ridiculous amounts of money.

So on December 28th I did a video titled “Tower of Fantasy Cancels Global English Release.” That was a video I wasn’t overly thrilled to make as I was genuinely anticipating this game more than almost any other MMO this year.
It made sense, though. Tower of Fantasy was unfortunately an absolute mess. It barely passed as a functional game. They were caught up in a variety of different legal situations due to things like plagiarism – stealing assets from Honkai Impact for their trailers.

But that’s not what we’re here to discuss. They’ve made strides over the last couple months, and are continuing to develop the game. And at their recent investor meeting, Perfect World revealed that they are releasing Tower of Fantasy Globally in 2022. And they are also overhauling it with a 2.0 update.
Which means that we can, I guess, get our hopes up once more. If they manage to somehow let us down a second time though.. I’ll probably cry if I’m being entirely honest. I’ll weep rivers of manly tears.

Now before we go any further I will note that this investor meeting was entirely in Chinese, and as such I’ve been forced to use DeepL to translate it and then pieced together as much of it as I possibly can to present it in an easily digestible format.

Perfect World went on to open by stating that they are still just as focused on making MMOs as ever. They’ve been focused recently on re-adjusting their overseas team and optimizing their domestic teams and projects. They’re working on transforming their company, and Tower of Fantasy is integral to the success of that transformation.
Profit from Tower of Fantasy has reached their expectations – not surpassed, not failed to live up to, but reached their expectations.
They are confident Tower of Fantasy is going to be capable of remaining a long-term competitor for the cross-platform MMO market, with Tower of Fantasy actually breaking a multitude of records for them, and allowing for them to reach a new bracket of players interested in multiplayer, open-world MMOs.
They noted that future projects are going to take advantage of Tower of Fantasy’s successes with Tower of Fantasy essentially being the foundation of an entirely new genre of video games.

They then go on to once again confirm that “An overseas version of Tower of Fantasy will launch this year.”
It’s also confirmed that they plan on allocating additional resources to the game and its development – and that the Global version was never fully called off.
To quote: “Learning from our mistakes, we have reorganized our overseas layout with a regional focus on Canada.”
Whether this means Canada will be the base of operations for the Global incarnation of the game, or Canada is where they plan on releasing the game first remains to be seen, but I’d assume the former.
They continue: “The development path of overseas localization is much more clear, an overseas strategy will be very important, our projects are going to be followed by overseas distribution, from third party publishers first and gradually by ourselves.”
“We are not good enough, but we are working hard.”

Apparently, Tower of Fantasy has had a total of over 10 million active players in its first month of release. I’d like to think that’s at least a little thanks to me, I dunno.
Although they confirmed most of these users weren’t interested in traditional MMOs, and their future titles are going to capitalize on this wave of disinterested players.

Again, at this point through the meeting they stress – once more – that “overseas will be online in the middle of 2022.” This is much less vague and gives us a better idea of when we might see the game realistically.
“The middle of 2022” could of course be anywhere from May through August. Give or take a month or two. They also confirm that much like the Chinese version, the “global, overseas distributed version will be PC + mobile compatible.”
Tower of Fantasy is the only game right now that they’re focusing on releasing Globally. They noted that some of their other Asian inspired games just wouldn’t appeal to overseas players.
“Tower of Fantasy and Million Arthur King are more suitable for globalization, and the first thing to do is have a more suitable product for global distribution.”

“Tower of Fantasy has had a lot of problems since it began its operations, but we’re concerned about the needs of the user, and as such will adopt those needs in the future of our projects and products.”
“With the launch of Tower of Fantasy, we have confidence in the future, and we plan on having a more flexible policy with regards to game development.”

They’ve had some issues with both their company and their titles over the course of 2021, however, while Tower of Fantasy is still far away from being a “great success,” it is nevertheless the direction they want to take the company and the direction they’re looking to take the future of their games.
Tower of Fantasy is the framework for a brand new genre of games, and with the expansion to a Global market, they’re hiring additional staff both within China and overseas to accommodate the increase in workload.

It looks like they’re planning an overhaul for the game in the form of a “2.0 update” as well, with the dev team stating that “although there were many bugs and operational accidents, I still have confidence in the game’s long-term performance, such as version 2.0”
At present, there are 200 people working on Tower of Fantasy, with more being hired on in the near future.

So, to summarize, Perfect World and Hotta are aware they messed up by making the game exclusive to China.
They understand they’ve had a lot of issues, but have been working hard around the clock to remedy said issues in an attempt to get Tower of Fantasy out in 2022 – this year.
Yes, the game will be coming out Globally in 2022, with their headquarters seemingly located within Canada. Or they’re planning on releasing only within Canada. Which wouldn’t make any kind of sense.
They’re hiring additional staff to attempt to make the game better. And are actually working on a “2.0 update” for the game that could drastically overhaul everything.

This all sounds great. However, after their last screw-up I’m going to definitely go into this a lot more cautiously. Am I excited? Definitely. But I’ll remain a little more skeptical this time.
You know what’s most exciting for me, though? This game right here. Which you should totally check out.