Cygames announced the highly ambitious Project Awakening back in 2016. The studio had remained almost completely silent about the project since its first gameplay reveal in 2018, leading many to believe that development had been cancelled. However, it has now been confirmed that the game is still in production and is finally beginning to take shape.
Many games are announced far too early, as both The Elder Scrolls VI and Project Awakening clearly demonstrate. In fact, Cygames’ RPG fell into this trap even before Bethesda’s open-world game. The Japanese studio announced the project in 2016 during Cygames Next in Tokyo, before showing its first gameplay footage in 2018. However, the silence surrounding development since then became so profound that many people assumed the game was dead, but nothing could be further from the truth.
For those unfamiliar with it, the project originated at Cygames Osaka, the same studio that would later bring us Umamusume: Pretty Derby, albeit with a radically different approach. The original idea behind Project Awakening was to bring together Kenichiro Takaki, producer of Granblue Fantasy Versus, and Junji Tago, technical director of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, to create an open-world RPG set in a high-fantasy universe with a primarily single-player focus, although cooperative elements were also planned.
The game was intended to become the studio’s crown jewel and, above all, the flagship showcase for the Cyllista engine. This proprietary technology was developed by Cygames and, in reality, has not been used in any other game since Project Awakening was announced ten years ago. Its proposed strengths included highly detailed environments, realistic trees and vegetation, real-time hair simulation and convincing fluid dynamics. All of this was intended to push the PS4, the platform originally announced for the project, to its limits.
Project Awakening Is Still Progressing Steadily Ten Years Later
A decade later, much has naturally changed for Cygames regarding the platform on which the project may eventually be released, but the game itself is still alive. In an interview with Famitsu celebrating the company’s 15th anniversary, translated by Gematsu, Koichi Watanabe explained that “development on Project Awakening is, of course, progressing steadily” and that the game “is really starting to take shape.” According to the president, the entire team is working confidently on a project that, after nearly ten years in development, is increasingly beginning to reflect the result the studio hopes to achieve.
Naturally, a great deal has changed during the eight years since the first gameplay reveal. Watanabe acknowledged that the current game is no longer exactly the same as the version originally shown to the public, although he stressed that its overall artistic direction and original ambitions remain intact. Throughout these years, Cygames has continued to refine the experience, incorporating new elements and making further adjustments as development progressed in order to polish both its gameplay and technical foundations.
For now, Cygames is unwilling to provide a release window or any further details about the project. The company would rather wait until it is completely satisfied with the state of development before discussing the game publicly again. One thing, however, is certain: we will eventually see Project Awakening running again at some point, or at least we hope so.
Source: 3DJuegos
