Bushiroad Game Projects Possibly in Murky Waters

This month saw major news come up with two games with Bushiroad involvement, neither of which seems to be settling particularly well due to uncertainty with the company’s long-term strategy.

The major news announced this month was that the Hunter x Hunter series was getting a “full-fledged fighting game” by developer 8ing. Despite 8ing’s pedigree of making licensed fighting games with a low development budget, such as the Naruto: Clash of Ninja games and the Bleach: Heat the Soul series, there is still some worry that the development budget for the game is even lower than anything the company has ever worked with, as Bushiroad has mentioned during investor meetings that their goal is to develop games with 100 million yen budget.

It doesn’t help that Bushiroad Games’ first published title, Rear Sekai, developed by the team behind the Rune Factory series, came out to largely negative reviews, averaging 2.2 on Amazon JP. Another Bushiroad Games title, Macross: Shooting Insight, developed by Raiden series developer Kaminari Games, has been delayed multiple times for “quality improvements.” There is a very real possibility that good developers are unable to turn out a good game due to constrained budgets.

In other news, Bushiroad also announced that Bang Dream! smartphone app co-developer Craft Egg is stepping down, with Bushiroad taking over the development of the app itself. Bang Dream! producer Masashi Yuda, who announced he would be stepping down from his role, apologized for not being able to continue working on the app, saying that “it had become difficult for Craft Egg to continue operating the game together with Bushiroad.”