It's a time when PlatinumGames he is making a lot of talk about himself, both for what concerns his past and for future prospects. We are talking about a talented team that over the years has tried to reach an ever greater catchment area, obtaining the deserved success only in some cases. A few days ago, it was news that Hideki Kamiya admitted his disappointment at the lack of affirmation, in the Wii U era, of The Wonderful 101, a title that the developers had been working on ambitiously. The remastered coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC has in fact the aim of widening the interested users and spreading the PlatinumGames philosophy more.
A philosophy that at the development level has always seen the creation of as very important unpublished intellectual properties, but which in recent times does not even disdain the revival of "old" pearls. Recently, if on the one hand we have had the birth of IP like Astral Chain o Babylon's Fall, on the other hand we see returns to the past with, for example, the upcoming remastered bundle dedicated to Bayonetta and Vanquish. Then there is the aforementioned The Wonderful 101 which, with its already great success on kickstarter, represents the first great star of that constellation made of four ads. Since the remaining three are still mysterious, let's hypothesize some possible candidate in this apparently crackling 2020 by PlatinumGames.
Combo of… remastered
Following the work starring Wonder-Red, it is possible that the company will pull other reissues out of the hat, some of which could be very interesting. Let's start from the early days of the team and then think about MadWorld, crazy title released in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii. A game with its own style, which allowed you to defeat enemies in the most brutal ways possible and gave a final score based also on the "originality" of the kills. His return would certainly be welcome, as well as that of the spiritual follow-up Anarchy Reigns, since these are products that already perfectly represented the type of action we love today.
Let's talk about a style that previously also belonged to some franchise of Clover Studio, now belonging solely to Capcom but which in some way are connected to the figures present in PlatinumGames. Among these we cannot fail to mention Viewtiful Joe, beat 'em up whose remastered would be a dream for many fans. It is obviously linked to Hideki Kamiya, director of the first chapter arrived on GameCube and PlayStation 2. In this case a new collaboration with Capcom would be useful to brush up on the series, perhaps with the development of a real new episode.
But returning to the possible remastered, one last product that would really need it is Star fox zero, a game that, despite the luxuriant collaboration between the Kyoto house and Platinum, as well as a name behind it like that of Shigeru Miyamoto, received a not too positive reception. In fact, he was criticized for using the Wii U GamePad more complicated than expected, a detail that made many possible users away. A makeover on the Nintendo Switch would be ideal in this case to adapt it to less particular controls and more suitable for everyone.
Possible surprises
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, PlatinumGames is not new to the development of various new IPs in the same period, which is why we could also expect some surprises in this sense, which obviously we cannot foresee. But we can hope that it is that mysterious project quoted last year by Atsushi Inaba, who described it as "something incredible, never done before, unlike anything we've ever seen before". Words that cannot fail to arouse great curiosity, as well as very high expectations for what would be a completely exclusive intellectual property of the team, unlike, for example, the recent Astral Chain, belonging to Nintendo.
However, it would not be strange to see sequels of popular and critically acclaimed games in the future. A further collaboration with Yoko Taro and Square Enix could possibly lead to the creation of a Drakengard 4, if not a sequel of Nier: Auotamata, both mentioned in the past by the famous director. These are quite plausible options, also considering the good relationship between Platinum and Square that gave birth to the next Babylon's Fall.
Going back to the days of Clover Studio again, an important work we haven't talked about certainly is Okami, which has received many ports and the sequel Okamiden for the Nintendo DS, but which would be great to see another chapter for home consoles. The latter was already the subject of rumors a few months ago when, through a tweet, Hideki Kamiya and Ikumi Nakamura suggested the start of its development. Subsequently no information was released about it, however we can still hope that the game is truly one of those four, mysterious, stars.
It would be rather unreasonable instead to think of an imminent return of Scalebound. It is only a few weeks ago in fact the news that the developers still very interested in the project, which, although it bodes well for the future (although Microsoft's approval is always required), excludes an announcement in the coming months.
The possibilities are many and all quite interesting, and we just have to wait to understand which paths PlatinumGames will decide to take with its next three announcements. We are especially curious to understand if they will exclusively concern remasters or if they will instead include something bigger. Meanwhile, we remind you that, in addition to The Wonderful 101 Remastered and Babylon's Fall, the team is also working on the third installment of Bayonetta for Nintendo Switch.
