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silent Hill and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama has shared some details about the upcoming first game from his new studio, which will be a horror-themed action-adventure, targeting a 2023 release, that will appeal to fans of Toyama.
Toyama’s Bokeh Game Studio was founded on August 13 and publicly announced in December. Talk with IGN Japan, the acclaimed developer explained that he is working on “an action-adventure game that will appeal to fans of my previous work.” He explained that the game will feature “battles and story elements” in the kind of richly created worlds you might recognize from his games at Sony’s Japan Studio and Konami.
When asked if this new title would lean more towards the horror themes of Silent Hill and Siren or the cutest paranormal setting of Gravity Rush, he explained, “If anything, it will be more of a game. horror-focused. But we’ll strive to make it a broader entertainment experience, rather than a hardcore horror game. “
While Toyama has been a leading Sony developer for around 20 years, he said this new game will be a cross-platform version. “We are developing with PC as the primary platform, but we hope to release the game on as many console platforms as possible,” he said.
The new title is being developed by a “pretty big” team, and Bokeh co-founder and producer Kazunobu Sato explained that they are still in the early stages of development, with an estimated release date of 2023. “We are still in the early stages of development. we are just entering the development of the prototype. , and development will likely take almost three years. So we hope to get this game into your hands in about three years. “
Regarding the studio’s founding, Toyama explained that a combination of working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and turning 50 made him think about his future and heed the call of the ‘independence. He turned to longtime collaborators Sato (producer of the Siren and The Last Guardian series) and Junya Okura (main level designer on the Siren and Gravity Rush series, to whom Toyama attributes shape to his gameplay ideas. ), and the three colleagues at Japan Studio together created Bokeh Game Studio, with Toyama as creator, Sato as producer and Okura as game director. They initially considered making smaller mobile games. , before finally forming a team “mostly veterans” to increase the scope of their ambitions.
“I took a lot of inspiration from genDESIGN,” Toyama said, referring to the studio founded by Ico creator Fumito Ueda, who was still a former student of Japan Studio. “Ueda told me so much about his experiences that it prompted me to do the same.”
While Bokeh’s first game may be a way out, Sato and business development director Yohei Hart (also ex-Japan Studio) have promised the studio newly launched Twitter account and Facebook account will show glimpses behind the curtain as the team progresses in development. “When you work in a large studio like Japan Studio, there is a limit to what you can share publicly, so now that we are free from those constraints, we would like to take the opportunity to share as much as we can… so that the audience can see how the game plays out over time, ”Sato explained. “We hope this will help people remember us.”