PlatinumGames' next game is "something that has never been done before"
"I know a lot of people say that."
PlatinumGames has teased it's working on a new game that is "unlike anything done before".
Talking to VGC, PlatinumGames' Atsushi Inaba said 2019 was "an incredibly important year" for the studio, and intimated that even though the team has "a lot of different choices in the way that [it] want[s] to make games", working with shared IPs can be "a hassle".
"It's absolutely the truth that there are cases where you want to do a sequel but if you don't own the IP, you can't do it," Inaba said. "It's that simple, and quite frankly in the case of Bayonetta it took a lot of time and energy to get it to the point where sequels could be made. It wasn't as simple as picking up the phone and asking, 'hey, can we do this?' There were a lot of pieces that needed to fall into place and a lot of negotiating that had to occur.
"That's a pain. That's a hassle. For us as creators, we want to get to the point where self-publishing allows us to own our IP and do what we want with it, including making sequels. So the faster we can have that freedom, the better it will be for all the creators here."
Consequently, it seems the studio is expanding its commitment to its own IPs, as well as self-publishing. Inaba confirmed "it's going to be a year of some major new approaches, new challenges and new methods", and at least two of the projects currently underway are "new independent IPs owned entirely by the studio".
"Right now we're in the middle of designing something that has never been done before. I know a lot of people say that, but the game we're working on truly is unlike anything else," Inaba said. "Even for our varied history of veteran game developers, this is something that has never been designed before. So from a game design perspective, we're very excited right now."
