Business legend Keiji Inafune left Stage-5 final yr, the Fantasy Life and Professor Layton developer has revealed.
In a brand new entry on the Stage-5 “5-Star Workshop Devlog”, Stage-5 CEO Akihiro Hino describes the “surprising problem” confronted by upcoming RPG Fantasy Life i: The Lady Who Steals Time, which is ready for a Might launch after having suffered quite a few delays.
Hino says that Inafune, who was serving as a producer on the venture, left Stage-5 “in mid-2024”, inflicting the studio to “reassess and restructure the venture”. Inafune’s departure, along with “harsh evaluations” from early playtesters, led Stage-5 to undertake a “full overhaul” of Fantasy Life i.
Hino goes on to say that the additions prompted by Inafune’s departure and the suggestions, together with “parkour-style actions” and “open-world exploration”, triggered testers to provide the sport “excessive reward”, reminding Hino and the staff of the “true pleasure in making a large-scale sport”.
In the event you want a refresher, Keiji Inafune labored with Capcom from the late 80s by way of to 2010, serving to to create enduring franchises like Mega Man, Lifeless Rising, and Onimusha, amongst others.
He left Capcom in 2010 and created Comcept, the studio that might go on to launch the much-maligned Mighty No. 9, in addition to video games like Soul Sacrifice and ReCore.
Comcept was acquired by Stage-5 in 2017, offering improvement help on Stage-5 video games like Megaton Musashi in addition to spearheading the event of the aforementioned Fantasy Life i: The Lady Who Steals Time.
It is not clear what Inafune will do subsequent; he hasn’t made any form of official announcement relating to his departure. He may, nevertheless, take the route adopted by a few of his colleagues and begin up his personal studio, maybe with backing from an organization like NetEase (though which may be changing into harder).
In any case, Fantasy Life i: The Lady Who Steals Time is ready for launch on PC, PlayStation, Xbox Sequence X|S, and Nintendo Swap on Might twenty first.
