Blazblue Series Creator Now Vice-President of Netease-Funded Game Studio

The series producer and main driving force behind Arc System Works’ Blazblue series, Toshimichi Mori, has reappeared as the vice-president of brand-new game company Studio Flare, which has ties to China by way of funding by Mainland Chinese company NetEase.

Last year, Mori announced that he had left Arc System Works after 20 years in the company, after ending Blazblue’s story in Blazblue: Centralfiction and overseeing the crossover 2D fighting game Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle. At Studio Flare, he’s working alongside former Sega and Marvelous producer Toshinori Aoki on new games, one of which is an action game.

The main point of contest is yet another example of NetEase getting its hands in another pie, with another famous producer as the flagbearer. Mori and Aoki talk about Netease, and their upcoming game in an interview:

4Gamer: Who is funding the studio?

Aoki: NetEase Games approved of our plan and agreed to fund our company. However, this is not a 100% subsidiary, as we still maintain a certain amount of shares, so we’re given quite a bit of freedom on how to run it. As such, we’re really grateful to NetEase.

4Gamer: It seems that the talks went over smoothly.

Aoki: NetEase Games worked really fast. Rather than an investment company, they had the impression of being a game company, showing zero hesitation to create great games. In game development, there are some aspects that can’t be measured in just numbers and logical means, but they understood that, so the talks went quickly because we had a common language in that understanding.

Mori: For me, I didn’t talk about investment, but rather I talked to the manager from NetEase, and they really loved Japanese subculture, and wanted to revive that sort of thing, which I really empathized with.

4Gamer: Now that we understand the direction of the studio, could we ask if the first title is already in development?

Mori: Yes. What sort of form it’ll take is still secret, but it’s a console action title that uses the knowhow from my previous game development work.

4Gamer: If we’re talking about Mori-san’s previous fighting games, then it does bring up the question of if it’ll have PvP elements.

Mori: Currently, I haven’t thought about PvP yet. Firstly the foundation of the “fun” elements have to be built up first. I’m about at the stage where I’m formulizing how to put what I want to make into game mechanics. Firstly, I’ll make sure to really add in what makes “action games” fun.