El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron isn’t even in stores yet, but Ignition has high hopes for the first production from their Japan studio. I asked Shane Bettenhausen, New Business Development Director, what’s next for Ignition Japan. Are they planning another title?
"I think there will be extensions of the El Shaddai universe first, before they work on a totally different game," Bettenhausen replied in a Siliconera interview. "Clearly, the world is deep. I played through the whole game now and it left me with tons of questions. What happened a thousand years ago? What happens after this? What does this character do?"
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is loosely based on the book of Enoch. At one point in the game, a single level spans several decades of time. Bettenhausen hints there is much more for ground to cover, though.
"I think those guys, when I was just there, are thinking what else can we do with this world? The characters have taken off in Japan. It’s a big meme. There are character goods coming out from Bandai. I really think El Shaddai has the potential in Japan to become a big franchise with lots of games." You can’t beat the kind of promotional support El Shaddai has in the region either. There are dozens of videos where Enoch says "no problem" on NicoNico and God gave Bandai orders to make figures for the game.
We’ll see if El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron gets as much buzz when Ignition releases it for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this summer.
Published: Mar 17, 2011 03:38 pm