Sunday, April 09, 2006

Mistwalker President Discusses Future Plans

Mistwalker

Microsoft held a press conference in Tokyo, Japan earlier today to announce their plans for making the Xbox 360 a success in the Land of the Rising Sun. But there were other developments happening for Mistwalker, the company created by former Square producer Hironobu Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi was on-hand today for Microsoft's press conference, and some new pieces of information came out for the future of Mistwalker.

The first Xbox 360 game in development by Mistwalker, Blue Dragon, is still set for a release by the end of this year. "We're right in the middle of development right now," said Sakaguchi. "It's hectic every day. Even today, I have to go to the studio to attend the voice recording right after I finish talking here." He also discussed the current state of Blue Dragon, saying, "It's a pretty rare case, but Blue Dragon's development is progressing very smoothly. It can already run on the Xbox 360 with things such as the battle phases and event scenes connected together. During the next few months, we'll be working on the stage direction and balancing the game."

Mistwalker's second RPG, Lost Odyssey, is still a ways off however, planned for release sometime in 2007. A demo of the game will be released later this summer or fall, and will feature nearly 20 minutes of its opening sequence. Sakaguchi said that he had showed Lost Odyssy's character designer Takehiko Inoue an incomplete version of the game, which earned Inoue's positive feedback.

Apparently not content to rest on its laurels, Mistwalker already has a third project planned for the 360, an action RPG called Cry On which will be co-developed with AQ Interactive, which was previously reported on by RPGamer last December. No other information on this third title was given, as Sakaguchi is focused on the finalization of Blue Dragon at this time.

0 comments: