Court will soon be in session again for Phoenix Wright, as Capcom has confirmed the oft-rumoured sixth mainline Ace Attorney game just now. The game, which is tentatively being titled Ace Attorney 6, before receiving its official name down the line, will make its proper debut at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, which runs from September 17th to September 20th this year. Better still, is that the game will be playable on the show floor, suggesting that it’s pretty far along in development, and Capcom simply hasn’t made it known to the public until now.
As you can expect, the game is coming exclusively to Nintendo 3DS for now, as with the past several Ace Attorney titles, if you don’t count Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy spawning from a mobile compilation, or Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies getting a belated port for mobile devices. It’s believed that regular protagonist, Phoenix Wright will still be the lead character, though all we know for now is that Capcom promises, “Quicker gameplay” with the new offering. Looks like we’ll have to wait for Tokyo Game Show to find out more.
If you’re outside of Japan however, and anxious to hear whether the game may be coming out in North America and PAL territories, then you can rest easy. Capcom has already confirmed that Ace Attorney 6 will be released in the West, and they will have more details on when and how that will occur soon. If it’s anything like the series’ previous 3DS offerings however, the game will likely skip retail, and be exclusively sold digitally on the 3DS eShop. The only exception to this was crossover game, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which did end up seeing a physical retail release in North America and PAL regions, alongside a digital version on the 3DS eShop.
Unfortunately, this appears to indicate that the series’ latest offering, known as Dai Gyakuten Saiban in its native Japan (and informally referred to by fans as “The Great Ace Attorney“), is not releasing outside of Japan after all. This is very disappointing, though it’s probable that Capcom simply felt that the game wouldn’t translate for Western players, as it’s a prequel starring Phoenix Wright’s ancestor, which takes place in 19th Century Japan. Given that the Western releases have retconned the originally Japanese Phoenix Wright character to live in and work exclusively in the United States, this might have also created further confusion with the series’ overarching narrative and setting.
This also means that Dai Gyakuten Saiban is currently only one of two games in the series to not release in the West, after Ace Attorney Investigations 2 on the last-gen DS, which was withheld from North America and PAL regions on account of an assumed lack of interest, due to the 3DS then starting to take off.
Keep representing Eggplante for all news and updates on Ace Attorney.