Phantasy Star Online is a franchise of fully online action role-playing video game franchise developed by Sega’s Sonic Team and published by Sega as well. Despite the fact that the titular release of the franchise first arrived on the Sega Dreamcast in 2001, the franchise has only seen one sequel, Phantasy Star Online 2, since then. In this article, we will be talking about the possibility of the third iteration in the franchise, presumably titled Phantasy Star Online 3, being in the works, and what its potential released window could look like. Right, let’s get into it.
Phantasy Star Online 2 first released for Microsoft Windows nine years ago tomorrow, on July 4, 2012, but only for players in Japan, the home base of Sega Entertainment. It was not until nearly 8 years later, in May of 2020, that the game was finally released for Windows in North America, with the worldwide Windows release coming in August of the same year.
This release pattern goes a long way to showcase the reluctance that Sega has shown with making a western or global release for Phantasy Star Online games, with the western release of the game being cancelled in 2013. The English website of the game was taken down in 2017, and fans were sure that they would never be getting the game if they were residing outside of Japan. It was a surprise reveal at E3 2019 that revamped fan interest in Phantasy Star Online 2 getting a western and global release version.
We know that both games in the franchise took around four to five years to develop, but this is not enough to go by, considering the fact that Sega took eight years after the release of the sequel to make a global release version of it. Assuming that this does not happen for Phantasy Star Online 3, we could hope for a 2025 release for it.
We hope you enjoyed this article on the potential Phantasy Star Online 3. Make sure to check out our other articles on Dead or Alive 7, Control 2, and the various Fortnite crossovers.
