Late last year, it was reported that several PlatinumGames veterans had seemingly left the studio. While only Bayonetta Origins' Abebe Tinari confirmed this news, it looks increasingly likely that Astral Chain director Takahisa Taura has followed suit, potentially forming a new company in the process (thanks, Nintendo Everything).
Initial rumours about Taura's PlatinumGames departure arose after the director (alongside several other Platinum vets) removed all mention of the studio from his social media bios. Adding fuel to the fire, one fan on Twitter noted that Taura's Facebook profile has been updated with a new place of work: Eel Game Studio.
We know very little about this studio or Taura's role in it at the time of writing, though its registration info (as flagged on ResetEra) states that it was established in late 2024 and is based in Tokyo. We know, shocking.
That's not to say that fans aren't already piling on the speculation, mind you. Earlier this week, a Reddit user (who swiftly deleted their account) took to the PlatinumGames forum, claiming to have information about 'Astral Chain 2'. According to their story — allegedly sourced from "someone who previously worked at Platinum Games" — a sequel was in development at Platinum, but conflicts from within the studio and from Nintendo meant that the project was eventually rebooted with the Big N at the helm (studio head Atsushi Inaba said that the series was under Nintendo's control back in 2021).
It's an elaborate read, but one that almost makes sense the longer you go with it — if you can get past the suspicious account deletion and the "Platinium" typo in the topic, that is:
If (and it's a big if) Astral Chain's director truly has left PlatinumGames and has since formed a new studio, there's every chance that a full sequel could be in the works. We're reading all this with a hefty pinch of salt, naturally, but it's fun to dream.
Taura joined the likes of Metal Gear Rising's Kenji Saito, The Wonderful 101's Masaki Yamanaka and the aforementioned Abebe Tinari with the bio updates late last year, seemingly confirming a huge blow to the studio's talent.
That said, it would be foolish to count PlatinumGames out. Just yesterday at Xbox's Developer_Direct 2025, the studio popped up with Koei Tecmo's Team Ninja to reveal Ninja Gaiden 4 for Xbox, PlayStation and PC. No, a Nintendo version hasn't been announced (yet), but it's clear that work is still underway from the Bayonetta developer, regardless of how many of its veterans may have left.
Do you hope to see an Astral Chain sequel in the future? Let us know in the comments.
[source facebook.com, via nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 40
We'll see if this ends up being confirmed but regardless, wish the best to both all those who departed PlatinumGames and those still at the company in their future endeavors - fingers crossed that at the very least Astral Chain 2 is indeed in the works (should finally play the first one myself when I can also considering I already have it)!
"NieR, far, wherever you are" hahah loved it!
Would be awesome if Takahisa Taura really did get a chance to work on an Astral Chain sequel for with their own studio for Nintendo.
I really don't know how to feel about Platinum these days. NieR: Automata, Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2 and Astral Chain are favorite games from them.
I'm not buying into the rumours but I'd love to see an Astral Chain sequel one day, ideally with a bit more story to go with the great gameplay next time.
I sure did love Astral Chain. I hope this new studio gets a chance to work with Nintendo on a sequel, or even a spiritual follow-up.
God, I would love to see Astral Chain 2 happen
A sequel would be awesome! I just wasn't crazy about those stealth sections. I might have to play through this again sometime.
Sucks that this game fell into development hell. I remember reading a report when AC1 came out that there were plans for a full trilogy. There was also a rumor that the villains would be the Digital Hermits but it seems that might have been scrapped.
At least Ninja Gaiden 4 looks promising.
Astral Chain 2 is among the very top of my wishlist for Switch 2 exclusives. That game was so underrated and deserved far more praise for combat and visual design on a limited platform as Switch.
Keeping Taura with new studio at helm for the sequel would be awesome, especially so as I feel PlatinumGames has lately done many moves that are "good for business" but in factuality are bad for studio's health, and my level of confidence in them has fallen significantly.
Astral Chain is so underrated, I really loved it. I'd be down for a sequel.
I've been curious about what he's been up to next! So excited to see whatever he does next!
Damn, this just makes me think if Astral Chain 2 does release, I'm assuming it might not be well received like the first one. Let's wait and see though.
hope we get a sequel to astral chain cause ive heard rumors theres one in the works most likely for switch 2 which would be awesome since the first one was so good.
@IceEarthGuard wat do you mean the first one was very well received.
Absolutely loved Astral Chain and would love to see a sequel - its nice to see it at least mentioned (though somewhat negatively at the moment) however its nice Nintendo havnt seemingly burried the IP after the first game. Heres hoping its being worked on
@Samalik im pretty sure ninja gaiden 4 and doom dark ages are coming to switch 2 would be no brainer for those devs to not bring those over since the last doom games was on the switch along with ninja gaiden being on past nintendo systems.
My main fear is that this Eel Game is a division of NetEase. Probably for nothing as the entire reason Platinum is bleeding talent is they are Tencent's bitch now so I doubt anyone leaving would be willing to jump to the OTHER gaming propaganda arm of the CCP, but they somehow tricked Suda and the Yakuza/Monkey Ball guy. Tencent are blatantly evil, like Microsoft, while NetEase sneaky evil, like Google
I would comment on this story but someone, who I will not name, is thinking something that I do not know so I can't confirm if it's true or not but people have been talking about a thing but I don't know what it exactly is or if still exists.
Here's another paragraph to pad it out so it looks like I'm revealing a lot of information but let's take into account that Astral Chain is a Nintendo published title developed by Platinum Games and saw release in 2019. It received critical acclaim. Character designs were done by Masakazu Katsura with Taura serving as one of the directors. The game sold around 1.3 million copies, a number that satisfied Nintendos expectations.
Now for the last paragraph. People, who i don't want to get in any trouble, would likely want a sequel to Astral Chain although I haven't heard any confirmation that such a game exists. Please keep in mind I've probably wasted your time having you read this and I can't confirm if I have but it is possible but at I have got you thinking and speculating about a new entry in the series.
That's all I can say for now. I will now sign off on this post and possibly delete this post and account if it turns out I'm wrong. Thank you for understanding.
I have played through Astral Chain like 5 times and would absolutely love to see a sequel, even if it is on Switch 2... I'll take it! I take all of this with a grain of salt though, since there have been a few Platinum games that were great and never got any sequels. I will wait patiently and allow this hope to drift again to the recesses of my mind.
@RiasGremory I meant by the overwhelmingly positive feedback/reviews for the game. For example the game got a 87 metascore and the user score on that site is 9/10. Similar on this site as well.
If the rumors are true that the development for the second game is very messy, and with what is happening to Platinum games, that just makes me think the next game might be all over the place in what direction the game is going for. Which may result in the game being not as good as the first game.
But I am going to wait and see what happens next.
Aww man... I wish him the best luck on his new studio, but I also hope there's still that chance to complete the Astral Chain trilogy they always wanted, especially for Nintendo's upcoming console.
As for Platinum themselves, I don't know what's going on there to see this sudden talent exodus happen, especially on a studio that was founded to not depend on another publisher (in this case Capcom's) decisions to make the games they wanted. Ninja Gaiden 4 is looking exciting at least, and who knows if it could eventually arrive on Switch 2.
I just hope they can still do what they do best, you would think Nintendo should help on their supposed dire situation, considering they have always had the best relations ever since the Wii U days.
I loved Astral Chain. A sequel would be nice to have but so would another original exclusive from Platinum.
The new Ninja Gaiden game looks absolutely superb. Platinum involved in that as well. I hope that comes to Switch 2. Same goes for the remaster of NG2. I'd be all over that.
So. The Platinum we knew and loved is basically dead. That's sad.
If there is an actual story behind why these people are leaving Platinum, I wonder how long it'll be before we get it straight from one of them. There have to be some gears not meshing well with how much the quality between their games has varied, but it's hard to say where the actual problems are without insider knowledge.
Ugh… the cursed touch of Tencent’s stain I guess. Worse than Microsoft’s.
Haha, great subheader.
Sucks to see what's happening at Platinum. I still hope we get Astral Chain 2 eventually.
Welp, no sequel, then!
I would really love to see an Astral Chain sequel. Such an incredible game.
@JimNorman that subtitle, Nier, far, … you mean to say, since that’s from the movie Titanic, he’s jumping from a sinking ship? If so: That’s hilarious, well found 😅
(Also sad if PlatinumGames turns out to be a sinking ship)
My Heart Will Go On is now in my head. I hate you Nintendo Life 😭
The remaining Platinum Games and Team Ninja should merge to become one, that would be the biggest dev merger going forward. They could call it Team Platinum Ninja Games.
I stopped reading at “HR department deprived of lighting for months”
Clearly there is some context lost because at face value, it would be extremely unlikely a specific business function was deprived of light in favour of saving money. The amount of savings ($) from turning off lighting in a building, for a specific team of maybe 8-16 people, would likely reduce total operating costs by less that 0.01%.
Salaries, perks, lease / rent, IT purchases, servers, software licenses, etc. would far succeed the cost to power a few lights. What a load of nonsense.
Who knows, maybe the majority of the info is true but I can’t treat it seriously.
Considering we know for a fact that Nintendo approached Next Level Games because they were made up of developers from Black Box Games, who made Sega Soccer Slam, as well as Good-Feel because Nintendo employee Takahiro Harada was impressed with a game Etsunobu Ebisu had worked on when at Konami - not to mention that similar relationships likely existed for Velan, given that their founders pushed to do a DK game at Vicarious Visions, and Grezzo, given that Nintendo subsidiary Brownie Brown worked on a Mana game alongside Koichi Ishii - something tells me we're likely to see Nintendo work with Eel before long.
As others have said I don't really know what to make of Platinum Games these days. Their back catalogue has some greats. Bayonetta 2 was amazing but 3 was awful IMO and most of their output now seems to involve throwing as much junk on the screen as possible whilst moving everything really fast whilst the player spams the dodge and normal attack buttons. Maybe they have become the Michael Bay of videogames, all distraction.
I enjoyed Astral Chain, but I don't know I'm actually fine if it doesn't get a sequel.
@Serpenterror That sounds like a mess. Why not just go with Platinum Ninja?
Either way, with the knowledge that Platinum now owns W101, that's not gonna happen.
@JohnnyMind It's so good! Astral Chain is very much it's own unique thing. The 'worst' thing about it is the combat system takes a bit to click, but once it does it's super fun.
Is Platinium not the British way of saying Platinum? 😋
An Astral Chain sequel would be terrific. My best friend got me into it and I’ve been playing it often! Great game indeed.
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