Okay, so technically there was a (very short) thread on this interview already, but I've both seen a ton of confusion around the topic this article addressed, along with people (seemingly including the previous thread poster?) originally thinking that Destructoid faked their report, so I thought it would be good to repost this with more information and clarification.
Summary:
Summary:
- Cygames held an hour long presentation at E3 covering two of their upcoming console games: Granblue Fantasy Re:Link (IIRC ~50%/50% co-developed with Platinum) and Project Awakening (entirely made by Cygames to our knowledge)
- This presentation was helmed by Cygames' Director of Western Marketing, David McCarthy, who explicitly approved the information in the Destructoid article for release
- Destructoid was not allowed to report on everything they saw, but to repeat, did get explicit approval to talk about everything listed below, and did not fabricate or lie about their article, the interview, or the existence of the presentation
- Cygames has had a major mobile success almost every year since they were founded, causing them to have huge amounts of cash
- Cygames' CEO is a big fan of doing all sorts of things, so they've since expanded into music, plays, anime, sponsorships, manga, and of course, console games
- Cygames is hoping to expand more heavily into the West with "big, beautiful console games" including Granblue Fantasy Re:Link and Project Awakening
- For Granblue Fantasy Re:Link, Cygames feels the quality of their art, characters, and storyline, combined with Platinum's action game experience, will make for a product that appeals to audiences worldwide
- Granblue Fantasy will be released in Japanese, English, French, and a few additional languages. This information comes directly from Cygames' Director of Western Marketing and was directly approved for release by him twice. This is an official statement from Cygames for all intents and purposes. This is not a statement fabricated by Destructoid.
- This was all that Destructoid was allowed to report on for Granblue, but they were very impressed by the demo they saw. The game will be shown again publicly in December.
- The other game they showed was Project Awakening, which is a "1% complete" game that they showed a clearly next-gen tech demo for. The game is being built on an engine led up by the technical director of Fox Engine. The game is photorealistic instead of anime styled, and stars relatively normal looking people. The general idea is to mix WRPG game design ideas with Japanese action combat. It's a fantasy title where knights fight dragons and the like. We've had a few threads on this so I'm not rewriting too much here.
- They have several other console games in development that they imply are also slated for Western release, but either they didn't show them here, or they aren't allowing anyone to talk about the games. We know from one of the producers they hired recently that they intend to unveil a new console game this year that's targeting 1+ million sales, and is presumably part of this initiative.
