Yesterday, news broke that Hideaki Itsuno had recruited several fellow former CAPCOM developers to his new LightSpeed Japan Studio, which is also opening a new office in Osaka in addition to the existing one in Tokyo.
Now, through an interview with VideoGamesChronicle, Itsuno has finally explained why he decided to leave CAPCOM around a year ago. As it turns out, it was mainly because the Japanese publisher would have put him on more Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma sequels, while the game designer wanted to do something new before he retires.
For me, based on my age, this is my last chance. The gaming industry has decreased the number of AAA releases, and I was asked to create a new AAA by Lightspeed. I’m not young anymore, so more than “now it’s the right moment,” it’s more like, “this is my last chance” to challenge myself. For Capcom, creating Devil May Cry and Dragon’s Dogma sequels is always going to be the top priority, and keeping in mind that making a game takes 4 to 5 years, this might be my last big opportunity.
Before you realized you are working on making the Devil May Cry 6 or 7. It’s not like I don’t want to make them, I do, but it’s hard to balance the time it takes with the personal satisfaction of making them, and with Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon’s Dogma 2, I already did what I wanted to make.
It's definitely an understandable sentiment. Itsuno is certainly not the only veteran developer who recently decided to leave a big triple-A studio to work on something else of his own creation.
Elsewhere in the interview, the developer says he is satisfied with how Dragon's Dogma 2 turned out (though personally, I'd have to disagree on that), and that he got more inspired by games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle than other action games after the release of Devil May Cry 5.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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