Last year, as reports were circulating that Sony’s beloved Japan Studio was bleeding talent, long-time director at the studio and creator of franchises such asSilent Hill,Siren, andGravity RushKeiichiro Toyama, revealed that he was leaving the studio. Shortly after, Toyama announced that he and fellow ex-Japan Studio developers Kazunobu Sato and Junya Okura had founded Bokeh Game Studio, a new third-party game developer early in pre-production on a new horror title inspired by Toyama’s work on theSilent HillandSirenfranchises. As the game continues in pre-production, Bokeh Game Studio has revealed that ex-Devil May Cryartist Tatsuya Yoshikawa has joined its new horror project.
Keiichiro Toyama first joined Konami in 1994, where he worked as a graphic artist, even contributing as a character designer for the beloved Sega CD version of Hideo Kojima’s cult classic adventure gameSnatcher. In 1996, Toyama was made the leader of an internal Konami team called Team Silent, a group of young developers tasked with creating a horror game for the PlayStation to compete withResident Evil. The game soon came to be known asSilent Hill, which eventually released in 1999. After shippingSilent Hill,Toyama left Konami for Sony’s Japan Studio, where he created theSirenfranchise and in 2012 releasedGravity Rush, which went on to spawn a modern cult classic franchise.
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Toyama announced thathe had founded Bokeh Game Studio in December 2020, 3 months after leaving Japan Studio. Since then, the team has released small teases and concept art hinting at what the upcoming horror IP could look like. Today, the studio has announced that ex-Capcom artist Tatsuya Yoshikawa has joined the project, implying that the game could have a more anime-inspired art style similar to Toyama’s work on theGravity Rushseries. Most will probably be familiar with Yoshikawa’s work thanks to his contributions to theDevil May Cryfranchise, as he was a character designer forDevil May Cry 4andDevil May Cry 5, however Yoshikawa’s work is often related to theBreath of Fire RPGseries, which he has worked on since its debut in 1993.
Yoshikawa also previously worked as aguest character designer onGravity Rush 2’s DLC, which is where he first worked with Toyama. The video shows some of his work for Bokeh Game Studio’s first title already, which Toyama reveals still does not have a story or plan yet. In this regard, Yoshikawa’s work will be instrumental in getting the project off the ground and out of pre-production.
So far, Bokeh Game Studio’s first project is looking to fall in the middle of pleasing bothSilent Hillfans with Toyama’s return to horror andGravity Rushfans with Toyama’s return to the anime stylethat defined that series even on Sony’s underperforming PlayStation Vita handheld. Either way, it seems the actual release of the project is still many years away, but it’s easy to see why it’s worth being excited for this new project.
