The man behind Devil May Cry, Ōkami, and Bayonetta has left the developer he helped to found but will remain in the video games industry.
In a surprise announcement, PlatinumGames vice president and Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya has announced he will leave the company next month.
‘This came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs and was by no means an easy decision to make,’ he said on Twitter.
‘However, I feel this outcome is for the best. I will continue to create in my Hideki Kamiya way. I hope you’ll keep your eyes peeled.’
Platinum also posted a tweet, praising Kaimya’s work and giving no obvious indication of an acrimonious split.
‘We are truly grateful for his creative ideas, leadership, and contribution to the growth of PlatinumGames from our start-up to this very day,’ says the Platinum tweet.
‘We believe that he will continue to succeed in his future endeavours as a game creator. We are looking forward to seeing the game industry grow into a better place with him in it. We wish him all the best for the future!’
The news is a surprise not just because Kaimya helped found the developer, after he and a number of other top creators left Capcom in 2007, but because he was known to be deep into development of pet project Project G.G. – a homage to Ultraman and other tokusatsu series of his youth.
It’s assumed the game will be completed without him but neither party has mentioned it yet. Although he oversaw most games at Platinum in some capacity, it would’ve been his first game as director since The Wonderful 101 in 2013.
There’s already speculation that Kamiya will reemerge with backing from a major Chinese publisher, as has already happened with a number of Japanese developers, such as Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi and Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture.
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