In a recent interview with 4Gamer.net, Phantasy Star Online 2 Producer Satoshi Sakai revealed many details about Sega’s newest RPG. The one that has garnered the biggest attention of the net has been that Europe and North America will be sharing servers. There was also implication that the shared server will not be connected to the Asian servers.
Fans of the Phantasy Star franchise have already begun expressing their displeasure over this issue, taking to forums to vent. Sakai has stated that this was done because of legal issues in each country, such as censorship. There was also a hinting of different characterization features in the western release.
On the brighter side, Sakai was thrilled with fan reaction over the game so far, excluding the backlash over servers. He was particularly amazed with how fast fans translated the Japanese in the game in order to effectively use the Japanese beta servers.
Phantasy Star Online 2 is a Free-to-play action JRPG that is currently available in Japan on PC. It will release on multiple platforms around the world for a year, including a release on the PlayStation Vita and the western release in early 2013.
To see the interview (WARNING: either an understanding of Japanese or a translation app is needed), click here.