In an email statement to Japanese gaming site Denfaminico Gamer, FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki indicated that the studio has unannounced new projects in the works, while largely demurring from making a comment about recent investor drama at FromSoft’s parent company, Kadokawa.
I’ve relied on machine translation to parse Denfaminico’s article and Miyazaki’s email response. The developer stated he was not in a position to discuss recent action by activist investors in Kadokawa, but said he was “generally satisfied with the development environment” under the anime publishing giant, and that the studio was “able to freely create the games we want to make without excessive interference.”
“I believe that maintaining such an environment in the future, allowing us to concentrate solely on game development as much as possible, is of utmost importance to both myself and to us at FromSoftware,” Miyazaki told Denfaminico Gamer.
It’s understandable the developer would be reluctant to say much else about Kadokawa’s current situation. As reported by Automaton, Hong Kong-based hedge fund Oasis Management purchased a majority share in Kadokawa, and is pushing for its current CEO to be fired.
With regards to FromSoftware, Oasis was critical of Kadokawa allowing it to work with third party publishers like Bandai Namco, instead of having the developer publish through Kadokawa itself.
Miyazaki did drop a little crumb of something at the end for the fans, though. “We want to assure you that we will continue to work harder than ever to create truly valuable games,” said Miyazaki. “We hope you will look forward to our upcoming titles, both those already announced and those yet to be announced.”
It’s not much, but it’s something. Currently the only upcoming project FromSoft has announced is the Switch 2-exclusive multiplayer game, Duskbloods, but it’s felt like the studio must have something else in its back pocket to reveal soon. Whatever FromSoft’s next big thing is, I’m hoping we see it in some form before the end of the year.
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