NIS America has announced that Ys X: Proud Nordics launches on February 20, 2026 for PC, Switch 2, and PS5 in the West. This comes almost 1.5 years after the original game, Ys X: Nordics was released globally too. The question is, is it worth it?
Ys X: Nordics is a real-time action-RPG that follows series protagonist Adol Christin as he journeys to the Obelia Gulf. There, he meets a young warrior woman named Karja and must team up with her to defend the surrounding islands from mysterious enemies called the Griegr while uncovering their mysterious origins.
Ys X: Proud Nordics has an entirely new area called Oland Island and provides extra content for players who may have already played the original. Plus, there are going to be quality of life and graphical improvements in Proud Nordics.
One of them includes a new Mana Hold ability that lets players manipulate the outside world, as well as a new timed dungeoned called Muspelheim. It sounds like lots of work went into this enhanced version.
But I can’t seem to shake how unfortunate the timing is for Proud Nordics. A few weeks after the Western release of Nordics in October 2025, Falcom announced Proud Nordics in December 2025. A lot of fans were upset that they had essentially bought an “inferior” version of the game when an enhanced version was coming down the line.
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That’s like Atlus launching Persona 5 in the West back in 2017, and then a few weeks later announcing Persona 5 Royal for Japan (which was released in 2020).
To be honest, I agree with these players! They feel like they’re forced to buy the game again for its new content instead of it being DLC. If it was a substantial paid expansion, the backlash and frustration wouldn’t be nearly as bad.
Proud Nordics launched on Nintendo Switch 2 back in July of this year, and those who played the original game could carry their save data to the enhanced version. That’s better than nothing, I suppose. However, NIS America hasn’t mentioned anything about being able to transfer progress from the original regarding the Western release of Proud Nordics. Perhaps they’re making that announcement later, or maybe we won’t be able to at all, which would be rather annoying.
However, one factor that has to be taken into consideration is the localization time. While large Japanese developers like Square Enix, Capcom, and Bandai Namco are able to simulship their games, meaning that they can release their games globally in Japanese and English on the same release date, smaller companies like Falcom, NIS America, and sometimes XSeed are unable to do so. This is because they don’t have the same amount of resources to consolidate their development pipelines.
Ys X: Nordics launched in September 2023 in Japan. So technically, the game has been out for a year in Japan already before the Proud Nordics announcement and released a little over a year and half later. It’s just that the timing between Nordic’s western release and the announcement was ill-advised.
And Proud Nordics’s Western release date doesn’t do it any favors either. February 2026 is stacked with releases, especially Japanese ones:
- Dragon Quest VII Reimagined – February 5
- Nioh 3 – February 6
- Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties – February 12
- Resident Evil Requiem – February 27
NIS should consider pushing back the release date to March, but I doubt that’ll happen. Ys is a rather niche series anyway, even by Japanese standards. While there is definitely some overlap between Ys fans and the ones who will buy the aforementioned titles, the hardcore ones will still buy Proud Nordics on day one.
As much as I’m complaining about this situation, I know that I’ll be picking it up around release day, if not on it. So yes, it’s worth it. I’m still excited about Ys X: Proud Nordics, as the original was fantastic.
