Elden Ring DLC titled Barbarians of the Badlands was “leaked” alongside several games purported to be on Bandai Namco’s 2023 fiscal year release schedule, but the leak is likely to be fake. While Bandai Namco was the victim of a ransomware attack earlier this week, the chances of information like this leaking so soon is highly unlikely, while some of the games are highly improbable based on prior information.
Elden Ring Barbarians of the Badlands likely doesn’t exist
The main problem with the image, a “leak” that appeared on Twitter via a now-deleted Tweet but has been preserved via places like ResetEra, is the late placing of the Elden Ring Barbarians of the Badlands DLC. Japan’s FY2023 doesn’t begin until April 1, 2023, which would mean the DLC wouldn’t launch until some point between October and December 2023. While it is highly likely Elden Ring will get DLC in the future, the chances of Bandai Namco waiting until more than 18 months after the game’s release is incredibly unlikely. The longest players have ever waited for Soulsborne DLC is 13 months, and that was for Artorias of the Abyss in Dark Souls. All of the later Soulsborne titles had received multiple expansions by the games’ first anniversary.
There are several other reasons to disbelieve the image. Dragonball The Breakers would have been delayed if the image is true, as that is currently scheduled to be released in 2022. Dragonball Xenoverse 3 is unlikely to exist while DLC is continuously added to Xenoverse 2. Finally, while there will be another Digimon Story game, it has already been confirmed that it will not be Cybersleuth 2.
Bandai Namco was reportedly the victim of a ransomware attack over the weekend. The group who has claimed responsibility had said they would release data acquired from the servers “soon”. Even by hackers’ standards, 24 hours seems to be too soon for a genuine leak. When Capcom suffered a similar attack, their future release schedule was leaked online but it took a longer period of time for this to happen. Bandai Namco is yet to make a statement on whether the claims are true.
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