Phantasy Star Online 2's Long-Awaited North American Release Hobbled by Bugs

Sega has responded to players who are currently struggling with the PC version of Phantasy Star Online 2, the popular MMORPG that recently received a long-awaited North American release. The launch has been plagued with issues when it comes to downloading and installing the game from the Windows Store. “We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and the negative experience some of you have had when trying to download and install [Phantasy Star Online 2],” says the North American Phantasy Star Online 2 team in a series of tweets published late last night. “Please know that we are working hard to solve these problems and that we appreciate your patience.” The team says it’s “working closely” with Microsoft to help solve some of the issues when trying to launch the game on Windows 10. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/08/phantasy-star-online-2-the-first-18-minutes"] Phantasy Star Online 2 is a long-running, free-to-play MMO that was released in Japan back in 2012. After eight years, an official North American release was announced at E3 2019 for PC and Xbox One during the Microsoft press conference. However, since its official release on May 27, 2020 players have encountered a variety of problems trying to get the PC version up and running from the Windows Store. Rather than a single issue, there appears to be a variety of different problems affecting different players. According to an extensive bug list compiled on Reddit, the launcher suffers from read/write install issues that can clog up PC storage space, corrupted downloads, non-functioning settings menu, and other random errors. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/13/21-minutes-of-phantasy-star-online-2-exploration-gameplay"] One issue I’ve personally encountered with the PC version is being unable to select which drive to install Phantasy Star Online 2. Instead, the installation will only default to my primary drive without offering me a choice to select a different storage solution. Some players have taken the matter into their own hands. The developers behind the Arks Layer fan launcher — which is what allowed international players to access the Japanese version of Phantasy Star Online 2 these past eight years — have announced plans to update their launcher to support updates and patches for North American servers. They are also looking into solutions that could potentially bypass the Windows Store.

IGN previously reached out to the Phantasy Star Online 2 team to ask whether the developers were aware of the complaints and what plans there might be to address them. The developers eventually sent us a link to the publicly available statements released over Twitter.

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Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN.

source https://www.ign.com/articles/phantasy-star-online-2-pc-download-install-issues-windows-store