There is a lot going right for PlatinumGames right now, The Wonderful 101 Kickstarter blew past all expectations, a new IP has been announced in Project G.G. and now, PlatinumGames has announced that they are opening a new development office in Tokyo as well as making its own in house game engine! A series of new interviews, posted by PlatinumGames, outlines many of the exciting things happening for the studio.
First, let’s talk about the fact that there will soon be a second office for making Platinum games. Platinum has always seemed like it had a million projects in the works at once so now that they are going to have a second studio, it means that the potential for titles can increase, hopefully not at the expense of quality. The expansion is also allowing for PlatinumGames to branch out into different genres so who knows, maybe someday soon we will get our first real Platinum multiplayer experience!
“We’re always actively expanding our Osaka office, but by branching out and establishing a new development hub in Tokyo, we’ll expand our staff and our skills even further. I want us to be able to realize as many of our creative goals as possible, and to do that, I think we need to advance our development both in Osaka and Tokyo.”
To further drive these goals Platinum has also begun working on its own in-house game engine. Platinum games have always utilized their own engines but this latest effort is to make things easier for the team to bring their experiences to life. The engine is currently dubbed the PlatinumEngine but that is still just a working title. according to the interview with Chief Technology Officer Wataru Ohmori, the team tried to use pre-established engines like Unity and Unreal Engine but found them to be lacking features key to PlatinumGames.
“We tested out external engines like those, but we found that they were lacking some features that we needed. It’s possible those features could be implemented at some point, but even if so, it would be on a timeframe that’s completely out of our control. When you’re trying to develop highly original titles, that lack of control can be fatal. We decided that developing and improving our own engine is the only way to be sure that we meet our game development teams’ exact needs.”
The engine will focus on driving next level animations rather than pure graphical fidelity which should greatly enhance Platinum’s signature action. I don’t think we have to worry much about the games not looking good though. It also looks like we are a few years out before the PlatinumEngine will be ready for use so it will be interesting to see the difference in games next-gen that do and don’t make use of it.
The future of PlatinumGames is looking bright and with The Wonderful 101 Remaster and Bayonetta 3 on the horizon, there should be plenty for fans to be excited about from the studio even in the short term! be sure to check out the rest of the studio interviews to get an even better glance at the studio’s future!
