Author: Game Infliction

Capcom and Tango Gameworks veteran Ikumi Nakamura hasn’t been shy about her love and nostalgia for the project that initiated her into AAA development: Ōkami. And now in a new video conversation with Hideki Kamiya, the pair have opened up about Ōkami’s development, including Kamiya’s belief that its development team as a whole…could have been better.

This comes from a new entry in a video series presented by Nakamura’s new studio, Unseen, called Ask Ikumi. In it, she’s been sharing all sorts of behind the scenes game development insights both on Unseen’s project, Kemuri, and her own development experience. In this latest video, she sits down to chat with longtime colleague Hideki Kamiya, with whom she worked on Ōkami, Bayonetta, and briefly on Scalebound. Their conversation largely focuses on Ōkami’s development, and the pair has a lot to say!

The video opens with Kamiya explaining his notorious philosophy of blocking anyone who annoys him on Twitter by asking questions he’s answered before, or not addressing him in Japanese. They then launch into a discussion of Ōkami’s development. First, they discuss its original conception in a photo-realistic style. Ōkami was apparently first conceived while Kamiya was working on Viewtiful Joe, and saw work on the Resident Evil remake for GameCube being done next to him. He was impressed by the realism, and wanted to use that style for something more “light-hearted” than the horror genre. So Ōkami was conceived as a game about “healing.”

But, he says, the photorealistic style they were aiming for was a struggle to get working on PS2. With Ōkami in trouble, the team was looking for new ideas, when character designer Kenichiro Yoshimura drew main character Amaterasu with a brush. This design sparked a new visual style for the entire game. Not long after, the studio leads convened a three-day summit over a weekend to revamp the game, during which time the Celestial Brush was pitched, and Ōkami changed directions for the better.

But even so, Kamiya is candid that Ōkami could have been even better. For one, Ōkami was supposed to have a bigger story, but the team ran out of time and ended midway through what Kamiya wanted to do. What’s more, Kamiya has apparently been notoriously critical of the team that worked on Ōkami, as Nakamura brings up. She reminds him that at a party near the end of development, Kamiya apparently said to the whole room, “This team was the worst!” Kamiya admits it, and while he backs off his comments at the time a bit, he goes on to say he was “half right.”

“Ōkami was supposed to be Clover Studio’s signature title,” he says. “That’s why we wanted to create a dream team. It was supposed to be a dream team with all the best staff in each section. That was the plan, but in the end, not everyone, but as the whole team, I frankly think it was weak.

“It wasn’t a dream team. There was a very drastic contrast within. There were certainly people without whom there would be no Ōkami. Those members shone brightly. Some of them really shone stronger even more than ones I had worked with previously. I’m not saying this as flattery, but you [Nakamura] certainly did. Naoki Katakai and Keniichirou Yoshimura, Sawaki Takeyasu, Mari Shimazaki, Hiroshi Yamaguchi. I’m really grateful, but when viewed as a whole, it wasn’t a dream team.”

Kamiya elaborates a little further in banter with Nakamura here and later in the interview, suggesting that the issue was that the level of passion and enthusiasm for Ōkami wasn’t high throughout the entire team, but instead was rather uneven. Nakamura acknowledges she noticed this, too.

“If I think about the Viewtiful Joe and DMC teams, the passion was uniformly high,” Kamiya says. “But in Ōkami’s team there was a huge contrast.”

“Because all the users who played and enjoyed Ōkami, I’m sure they all think it was made by a great team, but actually, that wasn’t the case,” Kamiya concludes. “This is my honest opinion.”

The full conversation between Kamiya and Nakamura is fascinating and worth watching in its entirety. In it, Kamiya refers to Ōkami as a “failure” (though he seems to be referring to commercial success) and notes that Clover Studio could have continued existing if it had been successful. Nakamura also states that Ōkami has had the greatest influence on the work she’s doing now at Unseen with Kemuri. You can watch the whole video right here, and then catch up on our own interview with Nakamura from IGN FanFest earlier this year.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

It’s more bad news for Cities Skylines 2, which has now seen its console version delayed indefinitely.

In a note to console players, publisher Paradox said the console version was still not up to scratch and will now miss its planned October 2024 release window, itself a delayed target from earlier this year.

“Unfortunately, we have not yet met the stability and performance targets we set for the console release,” Paradox said. “Without a Release Candidate (RC), we are now unable to meet an October release window.

“While we are making slow but steady progress, there are still unresolved issues impacting the game in ways that harm the player experience we want to deliver. We expect to receive a new RC, which will undergo a thorough review in August. This evaluation will determine whether we can begin the submission process and provide a solid release date, or if further issues need to be addressed.

“We understand this is disappointing, and it’s not what we had hoped for either. However, we are committed to keeping you informed throughout this development process, even if the updates aren’t always what we’d like.

“Thank you for your understanding and support.”

Colossal Order’s troubled city-builder sequel launched in October 2023 on PC via Steam and immediately ran into a number of issues. But Cities: Skylines 2’s problems began before its launch even arrived. Colossal Order had warned players the game would release with performance issues a week before it came out. In IGN’s Cities: Skylines 2 review, which returned a 6/10, we said: “Cities: Skylines 2 is an ambitious sequel that might have bitten off more than it can chew – be prepared to do a lot of terraforming if you don’t want your metropolis to look like a nightmare.”

Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen later admitted the lack of modding support was the developer’s “biggest regret.” Then, in April, Paradox was forced to offer refunds for the latest DLC, with Hallikainen and Mattias Lilja, deputy CEO of publisher Paradox, admitting the heavily criticized Beach Properties DLC was rushed out in a bid to improve sentiment around the disastrous launch of Cities Skylines 2. At the time of this article’s publication, more people are playing the first Cities Skylines game than its sequel on Steam.

As for the console release, the plan was to release it in the spring of 2024 after missing last year’s launch, but it was was delayed to October. There is no new release window. Back in April, Colossal Order and Paradox insisted that the team working on the console release operates separately from the PC development team, “so it will be progressing without splitting our focus or time.”

Missing October 2024 means Cities Skylines 2 will now launch on console over a year after it came out on PC, which was clearly not in Paradox or Colossal Order’s original plan. Meanwhile, both companies are battling a disgruntled player base by releasing updates aimed at improving the core PC version.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Expansion-sized Fallout 4 mod Fallout London appears to be nearing release after developer Team FOLON declared “the end is in sight” as it awaits final quality assurance tests.

In a post on X/Twitter, Team FOLON sought to clear up speculation by confirming it had sent “several builds” to CD Projekt Red-owned Steam competitor GOG and is awaiting the “final green light.”

“Once they’ve completed the process of double checking that Fallout: London and its installer work on all supported machines, we should be good to go,” Team FOLON said. “Yes, we have our own installer, and downgrader too.

pic.twitter.com/wttIUwAnQx

— Team FOLON (@TeamFOLON) July 6, 2024

“It is in all of our interests that this final QA process is carried out in full, and we are very thankful that GOG is assisting. While it may seem like not a lot is going on, we can assure you that the heads of the department have been working non-stop behind the scenes during this time to make the release build as good as it can be. The end is in sight.”

Fallout: London was previously due to arrive on April 23, 2024 but actual Fallout developer Bethesda announced a surprise update for Fallout 4, which the mod developer feared would impact its release.

“We’ve just been tweaking and testing non-stop in order to get things as stable as we can for you all in time for that release,” said Team FOLON project lead Dean Carter at the time. “But with the new update dropping just 48 hours later, the past four years of our work stand to just simply break.”

Carter later lamented how Bethesda, which has made clear it’s aware of Fallout: London, failed to inform Team FOLON of its plans. “That has, for lack of a better term, sort of screwed us over, somewhat,” Carter said.

Fallout London is one of the most high-profile mods in development and will let players explore a post-apocalyptic version of the English capital. Players will engage with everything from “stuffy parliamentary aristocrats to a resurrection of the Knights of the Round Table to an uncompromising cult of revolutionaries.” It even stars Baldur’s Gate 3’s Astarion actor Neil Newbon.

Bethesda development chief Todd Howard has confirmed Fallout 5 will arrive after the Elder Scrolls 6, which is still years away itself, but it continues to update MMO Fallout 76.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Hi-Rez Studios has pulled all Dr Disrespect content from Rogue Company after the streamer was alleged to have sent sexually explicit messages to a minor.

Guy Beahm, better known as Dr Disrespect, was banned from Twitch in 2020 without explanation. Last month, following a number of reports, Beahm admitted he exchanged messages in 2017 with a minor via Twitch’s now-defunct Whispers feature that “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.” Subsequent reports alleged the minor had informed Beahm they were underage, and Beahm continued to send “sexually graphic” messages to them regardless.

Twitch and Beahm have not responded to IGN’s request for comment.

Partners and sponsors like Turtle Beach, 2K, and the San Francisco 49ers subsequently cut ties with the streamer. Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded, also terminated its relationship with him, and monetization on his YouTube channel was suspended. Now, another video game Beahm was affiliated with has taken steps to distance itself from the streamer.

Beahm had partnered with Rogue Company publisher Hi-Rez Studios, which is also behind Smite and Paladins, to design his own level and even a $20 character skin sold in the free-to-play third-person tactical action shooter. That premium content is no longer in the game.