Silent Hill and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama has revealed why he left Sony. The veteran developer says he wanted to keep making games according to his own creative vision, but it sounds like Sony was pushing him to make more mainstream titles.
What does Keiichiro Toyama say about leaving Sony?
In a video uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Toyama's new gaming venture Bokeh Game Studio, he expounds on his career. Toyama says the audience for gaming "has become wider" in recent years, especially for companies like Sony. However, rather than chasing mass audience appeal, Toyama says his games "choose their audience, in a way". Toyama goes on to say that he wants to make games people will still love decades from now, and to do so, it was necessary to open his own gaming studio rather than stay with Sony.
Interestingly, Toyama also teases some details regarding the upcoming inaugural Bokeh Game Studio project. He says the game is "quite dark" and is far from the tone of his more recent games (i.e. Gravity Rush). Since Toyama created the Silent Hill franchise, he sees this as returning to his roots. However, you might not be getting a full horror game from Toyama, as he says he doesn't want the game to be "deeply rooted in horror". Toyama also goes into quite a lot of detail regarding his photography hobby, so it's possible we might be seeing some photography-related mechanics in his new game.
What is Bokeh Game Studios working on?
Keiichiro Toyama's new studio was founded in December last year. It's a collaborative effort between Toyama, The Last Guardian producer Kazunobu Sato, and longtime Toyama collaborator Junya Okura. When the studio was founded, Bokeh shared some tentative concept art for its upcoming game, which depicted spindly monsters seemingly influenced by Japanese folklore. The new Bokeh Game Studios video shows off a little more of that art, although it's likely going to be a while until we see the game into which it will be slotted.
It's well worth checking out the full video to hear more about Keiichiro Toyama's creative process, his love of photography, and his views on horror gaming, among other things. Sadly, we still don't have a release date for the first Bokeh Game Studios game, but if you love Silent Hill or you've been a fan of Toyama's previous works, it sounds like you're going to love this one too. We'll bring you more as soon as we get it.
What do you want to see from Bokeh Game Studio? Let us know in the comments below!
