Falcom and NIS America revealed the first trailer for the western release of Ys IX: Monstrum Nox at New Game Plus Expo. NIS America revealed on the same occasion that Ys IX: Monstrum Nox will unsurprisingly not be a PS4 exclusive in the west, and will be launching on Nintendo Switch as well as PC. NIS America has been localizing Falcom games for these three platforms for a while now, so it's still following this pattern. The game is scheduled for 2021.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox features Adol and Dogi visiting the "Prison City" of Balduq. There, Adol ends up meeting the Monstrum, individuals with super-powers, becomes a Monstrum himself, and gets tangled in the mysteries of the city.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is also the furthest adventure of Adol in the Ys timeline and includes multiple references to previous games. Especially in its prologue, with a pretty fun scene where Adol recounts his past adventures to an investigator. It's still an entirely standalone game though and you won't miss anything starting with it.

The game will feature the original Japanese voices and an English dub. Koch Media France specified the game will also include French subtitles in Europe.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox Western Release Trailer

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox was released in Japan on September 26, 2019 on PS4, and later on in Asia. Falcom initially told DualShockers in July 2019, before the game released in Japan, that it wasn't currently planned in the west. The western release was then teased for the first time in November 2019. And then confirmed via a Gematsu interview in April 2020. It seems plans for a localization moved quite late, and this explains why we'll have to wait till 2021.

Personally, as someone who already played a good chunk of the game in Japanese, I can assure you it's an awesome game. Gameplay wise it isn't a huge evolution compared to Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, but the Monstrum abilities, the incredible vertical dungeon design, and the giant explorable city of Balduq makes it into a really unique experience and among the best Action RPGs there ever was, up there with Ys VIII.

I'd also add I'm slightly worried at how the PC and Switch versions of Ys IX will run and hopefully, they will be well ported and optimized. Falcom, being a very small studio, actually launched Ys IX on PS4 with pretty big framerate issues at first, and these were corrected a few weeks after release via a patch. The game still has some slowdowns in certain areas though, even on PS4 Pro. I personally don't mind and I don't think it makes the game any worse, but those who worship the god of 60 FPS definitely will.

Be sure to check out our previous Ys IX: Monstrum Nox coverage, including: Our latest interview with Falcom President Toshihiro Kondo, his latest comments on the Ys Series as a whole and Ys IX possibly launching on PS5, teasing of an Ys V remake, more gameplay, trailers, screenshots, and artwork.