Takuya Iwasaki first worked at Namco on titles such as Ridge Racer and Ace Combat, then moved onto Cavia, where he was the producer on Drakengard and Nier. Since then, he’s started a new company called Orca, and has worked on Dragon Quest X. It was revealed in an interview with Famitsu that Orca are currently working on a new project in the series.
During the interview, Famitsu asked the Orca developers about their latest work.
“I’ve been put in charge for the production of a project for the Dragon Quest series,” said producer Toru Takahashi. “At the moment, we’re looking for new planners for this new project. Orca’s staff consists of about 70% programmers, so it’s kind of difficult to internally develop even one piece of software.”
“Using this opportunity, we’re recruiting planners and designers to our staff, so we can strengthen the company. We’re going on a huge recruiting spree,” Takahashi adds with a laugh.
“This project has currently just started, and we really need help from planners,” says Orca manager Masatoshi Furubayashi. “We’d like to get the presentation abilities and ideas from a planner that can help show just how much fun this project will be.”
Famitsu asks if they could share a little more on this new Dragon Quest project, by telling us how far along they are in development.
“Since it’s a project that we’re barely starting, we’ve made what’s going to be the base of the game, then from here on, we’re at a stage where we’ll make various elements to add to the game,” Takahashi told Famitsu. “And to do this, we’ll need staff that can provide ideas, so we’ve decided to get planners to help participate in coming up with ideas.”
Furubayashi also adds that while there’s still plenty left to do, if there are any planners out there that would like to test their talents, Orca would welcome them with open arms to see what they can do.
We still don’t know what kind of Dragon Quest game Orca are working on at the moment, but considering that Dragon Quest is celebrating its 30th anniversary next year, and Yuji Horii said that they have several games in development for the event, this could very well be one of them.
Published: May 29, 2015 03:00 am