Level-5 President Talks About Upcoming Games

In an interview with Famitsu, President and CEO of Level-5 Akihiro Hino offered some new details about upcoming games announced at the Level-5 Vision 2023 (Tsuzumi) event. Hino also said that Level-5’s objective for the future is to aim for simultaneous worldwide releases of its games, something that it intends to achieve gradually. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Regarding Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Keiji Inafune will act as the producer of the game. Two new jobs will be included in the game, but no further details were given about them. However, Hino confirmed that these two unknown jobs are not Farmer and Postman, which were created exclusively for Fantasy Life Online. Characters from the original Fantasy Life and Fantasy Life Online will make appear the new entry.

Hino said that the development team for Decapolice has been working on the game for about three years. The concept behind the game was to create an RPG with a mystery plot as engaging as those in Professor Layton. The game was originally going to be marketed as “the next game from the creators of Professor Layton,” and as a spiritual successor. But since the announcement of Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, the developers at Level-5 decided that they could no longer do that.

An important part of combat in Decapolice revolves around negotiating with criminals. Since the game is not a traditional RPG where you fight monsters, engaging with enemies in order to convince them to give up will play an important part. If negotiation fails, regular combat will play as usual, and the criminals will be arrested upon winning.

When talking about Megaton Musashi Wired, Hino stated that the inclusion of two different frame types for the mechs will be a new feature of the game. These will be the classic Gorilla type, and the brand new Slim type. This was made to accommodate for the new crossover mechs that will appear in the game.

Level-5 recently announced during their latest Level-5 Vision five new titles in the making. These are Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Megaton Musashi Wired, and the detective mystery-RPG hybrid Decapolice. All five games are being developed for the Nintendo Switch. Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road will also launch on PS4.