PlatinumGames’ Heroism Continues

PlatinumGames has had a wild 2020 thus far — in a good way. Their year started with news that Chinese conglomerate Tencent providing them a big loan, enough funding for them to no longer exclusively depend on other publishers for work and start self-publishing. They wasted no time by launching a site teasing four projects, with the name “Platinum 4” calling back to the “Capcom Five,” five titles developed at Capcom that several of these same developers worked on (though one of them never saw the light of day).

Their first self-published project will be The Wonderful 101: Remastered, which they needed a little more funding through Kickstarter to complete. The campaign is still ongoing, but they got what needed and far more.

The second project was announced in Japan’s Famitsu magazine this week, realizing a long-running joke from director Hideki Kamiya’s Twitter replies. In fact, that should have been a big clue about its identity. The title is currently known as Project G.G., one being directed by Kamiya. It’s being called the final entry in the hero series, which presumably started with the Viewtiful Joe games (or maybe just the first installment, which Kamiya directed) and continued with The Wonderful 101. Just as the Viewtiful Joe games and TW101 were very different in terms of gameplay despite their overarching superhero themes, it’s already evident this Project G.G. will follow the same pattern through the vague teaser.

The video shows a metropolitan city being invaded by a giant monster destroying everything around them, sending inhabitants shrieking and running — an all-too-familiar staple in Japanese kaiju works. A Shiba Inu is shown to be in harm’s way, but is saved when our hero literally steps in, and subsequently grows to take on the monster directly. There are serious Ultraman vibes have, perhaps implying how this game could have two gameplay styles depending on how tall the hero is. Note the word “could,” because there’s no telling what direction this game could take from here. But this suggests that Kamiya and his team have an idea of what they’ll be working on.

The teaser is reminiscent of Atlus’ Project Re Fantasy and Square Enix’s Project Prelude Rune in how this project was announced to drive wide-scale developer recruitment at PG’s new Tokyo studio. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take as long as the former, and doesn’t get cancelled like the latter. PG has taken longer to complete their games in recent years, shown by how we’ve been waiting for Bayonetta 3 and Babylon’s Fall for a while — though the latter has since been revealed. Hopefully the hiring will help with that.

The previous hero games were funded and owned by Capcom and Nintendo, who oversaw their developments. This led to them shooting down several ideas, and Kamiya’s need to compromise on at least parts of his vision. This should be less of an issue with a self-published project. But that’s not to say some elements won’t reach the cutting room floor thanks to ideas simply not working out or budget issues. Unrestrained Kamiya will be a sight to behold.

Like any other project announced very early in development, no release date or platforms were announced for Project G.G. Given the timeframe, I doubt it will release by the end of the current console generation.

The third announcement was actually for the very company that will be handling Project G.G., instead of being for another game. PG’s main headquarters are in Osaka, but this new studio that they’re hiring for will be in Tokyo. As earlier supports suggested, this studio will focus on making live service games (or “live ops” games, as they’re creatively calling them), titles the developers will support with new content for years after they release. It’s possible Project G.G. will be one of them, though this doesn’t mean it won’t be a single-player game, or won’t have a single-player component.

Speaking of the hero games: It would be nice to have them all in one place. TW101 is coming to multiple platforms thanks to the crowdfunding campaign, but the Viewtiful Joe games are still stuck on PlayStation 2 and GameCube. There’s no way to play them on current platforms without resorting to piracy, so they need a remaster job. Project G.G. won’t release for years, so Capcom has plenty of time.

Speaking of TW101: PG provided more release info about the remastered version just as the Kickstarter campaign is coming to a close. The game will release for Switch, PS4, and PC on May 19th, May 22nd, and June 11th in North America, Europe, and Japan, respectively, showing how most of the work on them is done. Notably, the game will retail for $39.99 in NA, though paying for a copy on the crowdfunding campaign will cost $37 or $41 for a digital or physical copy, respectively.

PG will be busy for the near future, but it’s great that they’ll be doing well for themselves. Their goal will be to establish a publishing foothold to ensure that they won’t need to depend on other publishers for projects or on Tencent for continued funding. Whether they’ll be successful will be determined.