Some potentially interesting news for fans of ultra-hard Japanese action-RPGs – according to a recent tweet by former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida, Bloodborne producer Masaaki Yamagiwa has made the jump to Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja. Yamagiwa was a longtime producer for Sony’s Japan Studio, working on games such as Bloodborne, Deracine, and Tokyo Jungle, but was thrown out of work when Japan Studio was unexpectedly shuttered earlier this year. Well, apparently, he’s landed on his feet at Team Ninja.
A fun evening with Team Ninja’s Yasuda-san and @giwamasa, who joined Team Ninja @TeamNINJAStudio pic.twitter.com/WQTb6As0o2
— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) October 8, 2021
So, what might Yamagiwa be working on with Team Ninja? Well, despite his expertise, it’s unlikely to be another Nioh game as Team Ninja has said the series is currently at a “resting point” while they focus on new projects. One of those projects is the Square Enix collaboration Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, but that game is already well along in development, so Yamagiwa probably isn’t heavily involved in that one either.
Of course, if we really want to get crazy, the pie-in-the-sky dream is that Yamagiwa might be producing a new Team-Ninja-developed Bloodborne. The fact that Yoshida was the one to announce Yamagiwa’s new job does feel like it ought to be meaningful in some way. That said, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m excited to see whatever Yamagiwa is involved in at Team Ninja, but we just don’t know what’s happening at this point. A little speculation can be fun though.
Team Ninja’s Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin arrives on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5 on March 18, 2022. What do you think? Other than the Final Fantasy project what might Team Ninja be working on? Is something Bloodborne-related worth hoping for?
