This Week in Games

Heads Butting over NieR, Level-5's Games A-far, and Bloodborne Goes to Hollywood

Welcome back, folks! In an attempt at solving a long-standing mistake of mine (and following up on my guest appearance on Axe of the Blood God), I've started playing the .hack//GU games. I'm amused to hear so many older voice talents who used to be so commonplace in anime, like Crispin Freeman, Yuri Lowenthal, and Dave Wittenburg. The mechanics are definitely a lot more involved than the original IMOQ games, and I'm definitely not going to unlock all of the wallpapers or background songs for my ALTMIT OS. But I'm already invested in Haseo for spoiler-related reasons, and I look forward to learning more about his gaggle of online friends.

Top of the Mornin' to Ya, Laddies, an Animated Bloodborne Film Has Been Announced

Folks have been waiting for a good while to see Bloodborne return in some capacity. Sony has shown no sign of wanting to remake it. And allegations swirl claiming that FromSoft themselves turned down BluePoint's pitch to remake Bloodborne. While fans would settle for a simple Bloodborne port on PC, it's been a whole lot of nothing for folks for a while. There has been some Bloodborne-related media, mind—there is apparently a well-regarded Bloodborne comic book series. Fans did get a surprise this week, however, when news broke from Variety that there would be a new Bloodborne work—specifically, an animated film from Sony.

Sony is aiming for an R-rated animated film, produced by themselves as well as Lyrical Media (which is currently working on Death Stranding: Mosquito). The movie also has a surprise producer: Seán McLoughlin, alias Jacksepticeye. The decision to bring Seán along is likely motivated by the success of Mark Fischbach, a.k.a. Markiplier, and his Iron Lung film that released earlier this year. It's also likely motivated by video game films being the current "it-thing" among film producers. 

I don't watch a lot of Jacksepticeye, so I don't know how close Seán's relationship with Bloodborne is. Personally, I think having him onboard for a Bloodborne film can go either way; I know a lot of people love to claim that having a "real fan" of the work can guarantee a good film adaptation, but I remember M. Night Shyamalan claiming he was a "real fan" of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and that didn't do his Avatar movie any favors. It doesn't help that Bloodborne is a tough game to adapt, since its story is told in the typical FromSoft manner of implying the story through dialogue taken out of context and item descriptions. Provided, there is lore in Bloodborne, and it does make sense; members of a church in the city of Yarnham discover ancient eldritch horrors in the ruins underneath the city and start ministering ancient blood for healing and recreation. It leads to an outbreak of people going on a rampage, which only gets worse when increasingly insane citizens start emulating the Church's official hunters and go on witch-hunts of their own through the streets of Yarnham. Also, all of this may or may not have been deliberately planned by the eldritch horrors in an attempt on their behalf to have children of their own, if not to embrace humanity as their children.

What helps is that there is a lot they can do to focus the story for a single film. There's a lot of story alone to cover regarding the Healing Church and the first generation of hunters, like the tragic Ludwig and his beloved Moonlight Sword. There are also the many sins of these early hunters that make for good storytelling, like what happened when the hunters happened upon the mysterious Kos (some say "Kosm") on the shore of a forgotten fishing village. Add in some fan service by including appearances from fan-favorite characters like the enigmatic Lady Maria or Father Gascoigne, and you've got a basic skeleton that would easily appeal to fans.

Of course, this all hinges on whether or not the project actually comes out. In my time writing this column, I've seen announcements for movies and TV shows based on Golden Axe, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Elden Ring, and Helldivers. And we've heard a fat lot of nothing about any of them since their announcement (even taking into consideration that Elden Ring and Helldivers are fairly recent announcements). I don't doubt Sony is going to pump a ton of cash into making this movie happen. They're hungry for a successful IP, after all. But a bit of skepticism is justified, considering we haven't really heard anything regarding a script. Presumably, there will be more to follow in the future.

American and Japanese Fans Butt Heads over Preservation

Perhaps the only good thing to have come out of Twitter recently is whatever recent quirk of the algorithm has suddenly pushed Japanese Twitter and American Twitter closer together, allowing both communities to interact further. And I don't mean via Japanese artists being closer to American enthusiasts—I mean ordinary users. The result? Folks in Japan have come to learn plenty about Southern-style barbecue, and the Southern snack that is peanuts in Coca-Cola, the latter of which has gone viral in Japan. (For my American readers: I can vouch for peanuts in Coke. Just use the Coke that comes in a glass bottle for the best effect.) A great divorce has ruined the honeymoon period, sadly, and it's come in the form of a mobile game: NieR Reincarnation. While part of the fan-favorite NieR series, NieR Reincarnation was shut down on April 30 of 2024. But fans of NieR still wanted access to it, so a fan group created a private server for the game and managed to get a fan-translated version of it up and running. And folks in Japan really didn't like that!

The long and short of it is like this: fans from the U.S., being what they are, argue that in the name of preservation, it is necessary to resort to piracy to keep NieR Reincarnation available to fans. Square Enix already cancelled the game, the developers behind the project aren't profiting off it, and this allows part of a niche franchise to be actually playable for once for a segment of the international fan base that has hitherto never been allowed to enjoy the game. Japanese fans dislike the project, arguing that this wasn't the fans' game to resurrect and that hosting a private server goes against the wishes of the game's creators, to say nothing of infringing on copyright law. A lot of people retort that this shouldn't be an issue, because Japan's doujin culture exists, but the rebuttal to that is that doujin culture is actually a tremendous grey market area that is allowed to exist by the whims of rights holders, and doujinka both know that and strive to keep their heads down by toeing the line at every opportunity (avoiding certain works if the creators demand, only making barely enough to cover the costs of printing, never reprinting doujinshi, and so on). Also, doujin culture is more than just making Tijuana Bibles of established characters; it's simply anything made by amateurs; there are also doujin photographers, musicians, and prose writers. American fans find most Japanese reactions to be weirdly reverent of corporations, and Japanese fans find most American reactions to be insensitive and entitled. And that's where we're at.

For what it's worth, while this is the first time such reactions have really come to such a head between the communities, this isn't the first time such reactions have been noted. A few years back, fans of Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite created the wildly extensive Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite & Beyond patch, which rebalanced the game, added new music and artwork, fixed character models, and otherwise completely breathed new life into the game—all at a financial loss to the folks in charge of the mod. American fans enjoyed the opportunity for Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite to finally be "playable," especially since the game has effectively been abandoned by Capcom; Japanese fans were much colder to the entire thing, for many of the same reasons as with NieR Reincarnation earlier.

There has been a lot of ink spilled regarding this schism, and probably not for the better; many figures on both sides are especially reaching into racist sentiment regarding the matter. And while I feel like the schism comes from fundamental cultural and legal differences between both audiences (Americans valuing individualism and familiarity with parody law, Japanese culture valuing collectivism and not having such a thing as parody law in their constitution), I don't think it's necessarily irreconcileable and I think that there's way more wiggle room between the stereotyped stances between both groups. I think it's irresponsible, not to mention downright bigoted, to claim that people in Japan are just corporate bootlickers, the same way I'd argue that slamming American fans as just libertinous thieves would be equally unfair and in poor faith. Not to mention, taking any of these arguments at face value is risky because it's Twitter, the algorithm is designed to promote the most engaging (read: incendiary) comments, and its translator can't be trusted as far as you could throw it.

I don't have an answer for the solution; I, too, believe that preservation is an inherent need for games and media at large, especially as more creatives get older, pass away, or even forget what had gone on back when they worked on certain games decades ago. For a personal story, I had approached a certain artist regarding their work on a game they had made 20 years ago; they apologized because they simply didn't remember. And while I don't entirely subscribe to the idea that the idea of cost-effectiveness at keeping a game available offline is an insurmountable obstacle, I do recognize it as a challenge given how much you'd have to try and juggle in the name of keeping a game in-context (which, for a lot of gacha games, quickly illustrates how badly designed these projects are as games, but I digress).

By that same token, I also believe that wanting something doesn't entitle you to it. I'm a huge Boktai fan, exploring that was literally the first thing I ever published online. But I've never played Boktai 3. Oh sure, I wanted to, and I was disappointed when Boktai 3 never got localized. I definitely wouldn't complain if there was some kind of Boktai Legacy Collection that compiled all three games. And it's since been fan-translated, but I still don't play it because I'm not the kid I was when Boktai 3 released. The magic's gone. And even having a translated ROM isn't the same as having the physical cartridge in my Game Boy Advance and playing in the sunlight. I wanted a new Izuna game for ages, and we're still waiting for it to be released. Having had to wait 20 years for a new one doesn't mean I have the right to make one on my own; those just flat-out aren't my toys. The case of Touhou Puppet Dance Performance is relevant; folks made a Touhou romhack of Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen using actual game assets, Nintendo asked them not to do that, and the devs complied and made a new version of the game from the ground up using new assets.

As waffly as this might sound, this is an opportunity for both populations to grow. There's room for sensible dialogue and exchange, and there's room to educate people in Japan as to why people in America care so much about preservation. And by that same token, there's plenty of room for American fans to understand the Japanese perspective of respecting the wishes of the creatives and putting their energy into more fruitful creative pursuits. Starting a relationship based on shared interests is easy, but maintaining a relationship still requires openness, understanding, a genuine desire to learn, and behavior in good faith. The same circumstances that allowed for Japanese and American fans to butt heads over NieR Reincarnation have also allowed Tokusatsu fans in Japan to learn that there is plenty of love for the likes of Gridman or even Ryukendo in America, that people in America also love maids and maid cafes and respect the effort on behalf of people who try to keep maid culture alive, or people who just like each other's respective cuisine. The same way folks in Japan are excited to see Americans learn about and wear kimonos, or folks in America are excited to see folks in Japan discover Buc-Ee's jerky wall, there's room for us to understand why it is people feel the way they do about stuff.

Level-5 Visions 2026 Stream Overview

Level-5 recently had its annual "Visions" stream, where it details its upcoming projects. Now, I don't want to give Level-5 grief because they can make good games when they want to. I maintain that Dark Cloud and its sequel hold up to this day. People still love Professor Layton for a reason. Rogue Galaxy is an undersung PlayStation 2 classic. Ni no Kuni... Yokai Watch was a fun monster-collecting series with creative monsters, and it's a shame the series fizzled out the way it did. Unfortunately, Level-5 has been chasing bigger and bigger successes in the wake of stuff like Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven, and Yokai Watch, and they're not afraid of using generative AI to do it. At this point, it's not even a matter of the games looking bad; they can barely release a game to begin with. Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road was released last year, but it was originally slated to release in 2018. While the major bugbear that was Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time has finally been slain, very few of Level-5's announcements are actually new.

Speaking of Fantasy Life i: one of Level-5's major announcements is that the game is releasing on mobile devices this summer. I imagine that'll do better in Japan than the United States, but yay for accessibility, I guess. Similarly, Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is getting a physical release on the Switch 2. Going back to mobile games, Level-5 is pushing heavily in that territory: there's a new mobile Yokai Watch game coming to mobile devices, The Great Detective Nekomata. No, it doesn't have a release date; it's mostly about a Nekomata yokai solving mysteries. A new puzzle game was announced for this winter, Pufflings: Journey Through a Fantasy World. It's a puzzle game in the style of Suika Game: you help a gaggle of adorable little critters escape from a mad scientist's laboratory. This one releases this Winter. And finally, there's Inazuma Eleven: Cross, a new game in the beloved soccer series due out this June.

Moving away from mobile, we have Snack World: Reloaded, a remake of a 2017 RPG series. This was another multimedia project for Level-5 back in the day, but neither it nor its anime ever came stateside—I will be surprised if this game comes to the U.S. The game shows our hero out adventuring with a gaggle of cartoonish friends, but not much in the way of story, just a fight against a large gorgon. And don't worry about the release date, it currently doesn't have one—there's nothing but a big "TBA" for this one's release.

This wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't so constant for Level-5. Because remember, not only does Snack World: Reloaded not have a release date, neither do other long-in-the-tooth Level-5 projects! Professor Layton and the New World of Steam? It's got a vague 2026 window, but that could just as easily slide into 2027 at any moment—just like with Fantasy Life i and Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road. Decapolice? It's been in development since 2026, and it's still marked as just "in development." The most we have to go on is that the game has officially graduated from being just a Switch/PS4 title to being on the Switch 2/PS5. Note: this doesn't mean developing the game is now "easier" because of the stronger hardware; you still have to adapt the game's code to the new firmware... which still takes time. "Nine women can't carry a baby to term in one month," and all that.

And so it is with Holy Horror Mansion, Level-5's would-be Yokai Watch successor that's also supposed to become a multimedia project, combining dance, craftwork, and RPG mechanics. The game was originally revealed back in 2024, and the above teaser states there's "still a ways to go..." For a bonus, the game looks worse than it did in its original trailer—and that trailer still had plenty of shots that were very clearly AI-generated stills! The game is very clearly being made in Unreal Engine (a lot of people have clocked protagonist Ten Lordland's run cycle), but it also just looks plain uncanny; textures are weirdly over-detailed while everyone looks disturbingly glassy-eyed. The game went from a charming animated aesthetic to just being "Level-5, Hire This Man!" Of course, the reason is simple: the best way to hide AI-generated assets is to make the whole game look like that... so not only is generative AI absolutely failing at helping your game release promptly, you have to make the rest of the game look worse to compensate for it. Naw, man; I'd take a billion flat windows to Ten Lordland looking like the mascot of a medication commercial. There isn't a tree ugly enough to make me not cringe a little at the sight of Holy Horror Mansion.

In researching this, I saw someone make a salient comment on YouTube that I'll paraphrase for everyone here: the original Professor Layton and the Curious Village ended with the twist that no amount of "genius" artifice can ever compare with the genuine warmth from actual people. I think Level-5 will keep treading water until they remember that. 

Let's wrap up with some quick tidbits:

That'll do it for this week. In the spirit of cooperation and solidarity with our friends abroad, I invite folks to try some Coke with peanuts this weekend. Barring that, some natto. Don't ask me where to find natto, that's your job now. Enjoy your weekends as best you can. Remember to thank your favorite creatives for all their hard work. Be good to each other. I'll see you in seven.