Segahasunveiled a new mobile gametitled 404 GAME RE:SET. The company also confirmed thatYoko Taro, creator of theNieRseries, would be serving as the creative director on the project. Avideopromoting the gamewas streamed, with a release confirmed for spring 2023.
Sega hadpreviously teased the announcementwith a teaser trailer. Counting down to today’s reveal, the project turned out to be 404 GAME RE:SET, with Yoko Taro at the helm. The promotional video released as part of today’s announcement features information from Taro on the new game, alongside other staff, including character designer Yuugen (known for theAtelierseries), and producer Gosuke Nakamura.
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Published by Sega, 404 GAME RE:SET is a celebration of the company and its properties, albeit a decidedly offbeat one through the filter of Yoko Taro. The game’s story is set in a dystopian timeline where Sega is the antagonist controlling everything. The player will have to battle characters representing classic Sega franchises (personified as cute anime girls, naturally) to take control of the world back from Sega and restore order. So far, characters based on After Burner,Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, and Outrun have all been shown off, with the staff confirming that more characters are planned to be added later.
In the wake of the announcement, Japanese game sitesFamitsuand4Gamerboth posted interviews with producer Gosuke Nakamura, going into more details about the project. The Famitsu interview has Nakamura mentioning that Yoko Taro agreed to direct the project under the condition that he could use the Sega IPs as freely as he wished. He also revealed another character in the game named Ribbon, an original design said to serve as a guide to the player. The 4Gamer interview, meanwhile, confirms that 404 GAME RE:SET will primarily be a mobile RPG, but will also apparently include shooting gameplay of some sort. Nakamura mentions gameplay similarities to Yoko Taro’s previous titles. Finally, Nakamura also confirms that characters representing franchises from companies other than Sega are already in the works, giving players even more to look forward to.
This isn’t Yoko Taro’s first move into the mobile game market. The creator also directedSINoALICE, published bySquare Enixin June 2017. That game is still running in Japanese and English. However, the Chinese-language version in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau shut down service at the end of 2022, complete with a final story cutscene that forcibly logged players out of the game forever. That, at least, was classic Yoko Taro. If 404 GAME RE:SET will experience similar strange ups and downs, or thrive on the back of its Sega branding, players will find out when it launches this spring.
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