Jan 082021
Famitsu always closes out the year by interviewing Japanese game developers about their plans for the next year, and this year’s interviews include some exciting teases.
Gematsu has the full round-up translated here, so let’s take a look at some of the most interesting ones…
Fatal Frame
Koei Tecmo’s Keisuke Kikuchi, who was the producer for the Fatal Frame series among many other notable titles, mentioned that 2021 is the 20th anniversary of Fatal Frame. As such, he’d like to “celebrate it in some way if possible.”
That doesn’t sound definite enough to expect a new Fatal Frame this year, but I’m hopeful it means we might see a new port or remaster. Fatal Frame V is one of the noteworthy Wii U exclusives that hasn’t made it to the Switch yet, after all.
Project Re Fantasy
Katsura Hashino from Atlus asks fans to look forward to their upcoming fantasy RPG, naming it in contrast to the contemporary settings their games often have. This is a reference to Project Re Fantasy.
We barely know anything about Project Re Fantasy beyond it existing, but since 2020 finally brought news about Shin Megami Tensei V, maybe 2021 will be the year of Project Re Fantasy news.
Dragon Quest
It might be Fatal Frame’s 20th anniversary, but it’s Dragon Quest’s 35th anniversary. That’s incredible. As such, Square Enix’s Noriyoshi Fujimoto wants to announce something related to Dragon Quest this year.
Early last year, Dragon Quest XII was confirmed to be in development, so maybe we’ll get to see that (and maybe I’ll have played more Dragon Quest games by then).
Fantasian
Finally, we have an update from Hironobu Sakaguchi about Mistwalker’s 2021 plans. Mistwalker’s new JRPG Fantasian will be released for Apple Arcade this year.
Playing The Last Story left me dying for more games from Mistwalker, and while another mobile game isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, it might be too soon to write it off. Fantasian is being designed with handcrafted dioramas and looks at least visually interesting from the tweets shared by Mistwalker.
(Besides, Shantae & the Seven Sirens released for Apple Arcade first and was fantastic, so it’s not a death knell.)
Several more games and goals are mentioned in the interviews as well. Which ones stand out the most to you, and which teased games are you most interested in?
Wouldn’t say no to more Fatal Frame.
Definitely. A remastered collection would be nice, too. (Or a port of Fatal Frame IV together with finally translating it.)