Takahisa Taura, recognized for his work with PlatinumGames as sport designer on NieR: Automata and as director on Astral Chain, has introduced that he’s leaving the studio. As caught by social media platform X consumer Genki_JPN, the announcement was made by way of Japanese publication Famitsu, the place Taura revealed that he’s opening up his personal studio, dubbed Eel Recreation Studio.
Whereas Taura hasn’t revealed any particulars on what sorts of initiatives he can be concerned with at Eel Recreation Studio, he has stated that he is without doubt one of the studio’s founding members. Extra particulars will probably develop into clearer as soon as the studio fills out its growth workforce and begins full-fledged manufacturing work on its first main undertaking.
Removed from the primary inventive result in have left PlatinumGames, Hideki Kamiya introduced his departure from the corporate all the way in which again in 2023. Since then, Kamiya has introduced that he’s working with a brand new studio, CLOVERS, on a sequel to traditional journey sport Okami.
“We’re actually grateful for his inventive concepts, management, and contribution to the expansion of PlatinumGames from our start-up to this very day,” PlatinumGames wrote in saying Kamiya’s departure. “We consider that he’ll proceed to reach his future endeavours as a sport creator. We’re trying ahead to seeing the sport trade develop into a greater place with him in.”
Within the meantime, PlatinumGames has been working with Koei Tecmo’s Crew Ninja on Ninja Gaiden 4. Again in January, Crew Ninja producer Fumihiko Yasuda revealed that the concept for the studio to workforce up with PlatinumGames for growth got here from Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer. It additionally helped that Koei Tecmo president Hisashi Koinuma and PlatinumGames president Atsushi Inaba have been good buddies.
“I believe everybody is aware of that the Ninja Gaiden collection has been on maintain for greater than a decade, however Crew Ninja has been contemplating making a brand new title for a very long time,” Yasuda stated. “Nevertheless, we have been having problem deciding on a plan. Then Koei Tecmo president Hisashi Koinuma and PlatinumGames president Atsushi Inaba, who’re from the identical era and are good buddies, had an opportunity to debate the matter.”
“After that, Phil Spencer from Microsoft advised that the three firms – PlatinumGames, Koei Tecmo and Microsoft – work collectively on a brand new numbered title within the Ninja Gaiden collection, and that’s how the undertaking obtained began,” he continued. “We now have developed motion video games ourselves, however as a result of we have been going to be making a brand new Ninja Gaiden for the primary time in over a decade, PlatinumGames had already made a number of nice motion titles, equivalent to Bayonetta and NieR: Automata, so we needed to work with them, and that’s how the collaboration started.”
Ninja Gaiden 4 is presently in growth for PC, PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S. The sport is slated for launch in Fall 2025, and also will be out there on PC and Xbox Recreation Cross on day considered one of its launch. As a part of its revival of the Ninja Gaiden franchise, Crew Ninja additionally launched an Unreal Engine 5 remaster of Ninja Gaiden 2, dubbed Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, again in January.
