Denizens of the Blog of PlayStation,

You know how you’re really excited for something and then something happens and you get even more excited? Like that time you found out they were making a movie for The Hobbit and you were excited…but kinda bummed that Peter Jackson wouldn’t be directing it. But guess what happened: Peter Jackson announced that he *would* in fact direct it, and you got a heck of a lot more excited. Right?

Remember Dragon’s Crown, the next project from Vanillaware announced at last E3, a multiplayer action RPG with beautiful hand-drawn visuals slated to come to PS3 and PS Vita?

BREAKING NEWS: Atlus is taking over publishing duties in Japan and North America! What’s more, key (and very talented) members of the Atlus internal development team will be involved with the project as producer(s). You know, some of the people who’ve worked on games in the critically acclaimed Persona series. Yeah, we know: we’re stoked, too!

What does this mean for the game? For one, it means that it’s going to be better than ever. It will, however, come a bit later than originally expected, as it’s now slated for release in 2013.

When we took over the reins, we realized that a lot of the information made available to the public was ambitious and unfounded conjecture. The release timing, the pricing, and many of the features detailed for fans and members of the press were simply unknowable at the time they were disseminated (and frankly we were quite shocked to find out that many of the details were made public unbeknownst to even the developers).

It’s still way too early in development to be talking about specifics, but we can say that the game simply cannot retail for $29.99. We don’t know where that price point came from, but it is a logistical impossibility. We’re all gamers and we all wished it could be so, but it would have essentially destroyed any chance for profitability.

There’ll be plenty more news on the game in the coming months, and many questions that you’ll want answered. We promise that we’ll do our very best to answer them!

SUMMARY: Dragon’s Crown is still coming to PS3 and PS Vita, Atlus is bringing it (and helping to produce it), and it’ll hit North America in 2013.

*lowers goggles*

You may fire when ready.