What Is HYDE, Inc. And What Are They Bringing To Red Ash?

Comcept recently revealed that it will be working alongside another Japanese development company called HYDE, Inc on Red Ash. You might be thinking: who the heck is that? It’s a good question and one that Comcept aimed to answer by interviewing HYDE’s president Yanagihara-san,as you can watch above.

As is revealed in that video interview, HYDE operates similar to how TOSE SOFTWARE has for years, which is working on lots of big Japanese games but going uncredited for the work. Yanagihara says that HYDE has worked with Atlus and Nippon Ichi on RPGs, as well as Sega on a soccer game, and is currently working on a popular MOBA for smartphones and PC.

If you look at HYDE’s business page you can see that some of the other developers and publishers that the company has worked with on various games includes Konami, Idea Factory, Disney, Gust, Marvelous, and Bandai Namco. HYDE has been doing this since 2005.

“In Japanese game development, it is still common to not earn credit for some of your work,” Yanagihara explains in the video interview. “This is because the rights belong with the publisher or maker. Also, when it comes to the player’s feelings, it’s possible that seeing an unknown company working on two similar games for two completely different companies would cause problems for the publishers.”

“We consider what is best when it comes to reassuring and making players happy… That is one of the reasons why a lot of our work goes uncredited.”

Why does HYDE want to be credited for its work on Red Ash then? In response to this question, Yanagihara explains that he wants HYDE to connect directly with Red Ash’s players so that the company can say that it has created something alongside those who enjoy their work.