Inazuma Eleven: Great Road of Heroes Delayed To 2021

Inazuma Eleven: Great Road of Heroes is delayed to an unknown date in 2021 showing the new logo of the game, introducing a new protagonist and a lot more information!

Level-5’s CEO, Akihiro Hino announced this news in a development update, citing that there were development issues that made the production of the game difficult with the critical feedback leading to a decline in the development team’s motivation to the point that they also wanted to outright stop working on the game.

They have, however, gotten a lot of support from fans to resume development on the game and to continue evolving the engine and the development systems they had made during the development of the Yo-Kai Watch series. The hope is that they can do something with Inazuma Eleven that they have never done before, such as taking the time and care to make the game instead of tying it to the anime broadcast schedule. It will take a little bit more time but the team hopes to create an Inazuma Eleven game with a lot of freedom!

In addition to the delay, we also got a good bit of new information related to the story. It will feature 4 different protagonists: Mamoru Endou – the protagonist from the first series, Tenma Matsukaze – the protagonist from Inazuma Eleven GO, Asuto Inamori – the protagonist from Inazuma Eleven Ares No Tenbin/Orion no Kokuin and they introduced Unmei Sasanami who is the new protagonist of this game. The previous three protagonists will form a “United front” of sorts without any time-slips to speak of and you need to decide who you make friends with and who you will become rivals with.

Unmei Sasanami is a young boy who loves soccer but due to a traumatic experience, he decides to support other talented soccer players. His story will unfold through the game itself. Where the other protagonists become heroes by claiming victory and achieving something, Unmei Sasanami’s path to becoming a hero will be about providing support.

The game also promises to have more depth, wanting to thoughtfully portray the characters and situations that will occur in the First Football Frontier tournament depending on how well the player plays the game. There will also be a huge emphasis on freedom, instead of the story being one long main story. This may hint at the fact that the game may have 4 playable protagonists but that’s not confirmed as of yet.

While it is yet another delay announcement for the game, I am happy that Level-5 has reconsidered their strategy of trying to keep the development schedule in line with the production of the anime and I am looking forward to how this soccer RPG game will play when it comes out sometime in 2021 for Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, iOS and Android!

What are your thoughts on this announcement? Let us know and Feel free to join the official Rice Digital Discord server to talk about this game and many more topics!