Level-5 isn’t exactly known for this type of game, as the studio is the creator of Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven, Ni No Kuni, and Yo-kai Watch, all of which are family-friendly titles…
Akihiro Hino, founder and CEO of Level-5, has admitted that he would like his studio to create erotic and violent games. He said this in an interview with the Japanese publication Denfaminicogamer. The interview was conducted as Level-5 and Grasshopper Manufacture celebrate their 25th anniversaries (and Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda, aka Suda51, also appeared in the interview).
Hino admitted that he loves Suda’s work because he thinks game developers who can make such edgy games (like No More Heroes) are amazing. He has plans to make a similarly mature game, but doesn’t have the opportunity at the moment due to his situation within Level-5. So Suda asked if he had any ideas for it, and Hino almost immediately said yes.
“There is an ‘abnormal world’ inside of me, but I don’t try to go there, [and instead] just make things from the righteous part of my mind. But deep down inside I really want to visit that abnormal world. I want to go to that dark, abnormal world, and I think I will definitely end up going there. As soon as I feel that Level-5 is stable and I have the space to make what I want, I will do it,” Hino said.
Level-5 is working on a number of games. One of them is the revival of the recently neglected Professor Layton series. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is currently in development for Nintendo Switch and will be released sometime in 2025. Since that year is suspicious, we suspect it will make its way to Nintendo’s next-gen hardware (as well), at least courtesy of retroactive support. (But that’s just a rumor, as Nintendo hasn’t revealed what’s coming after the Switch).
Source: VGC, Denfaminicogamer
