Ni No Kuni 2 developer teases 'MMORPG-scale' game set in modern day

News
By published

Won't be out for another few years.

Japanese developer Level-5 made a hell of a debut on PC this week with Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, a sprawling fantasy JRPG built around a deep kingdom building sim. If you're into the genre then you should play it (read Austin's review to find out why). Following the game's release the developer's president, Akihiro Hino, gave a first hint at what the company is working on next—a game set in the modern day with a massive world to explore.

"I’m not sure if we can call it an MMORPG or not, but we plan to make a big title on the same scale as one. If [we're] able to get support from talented people able to do things we can’t, then I think we’ll be able to make it. By the way, the game we’re preparing won’t be fantasy but rather ‘modern day'," he said in an interview with Bandai Namco producer Katsuhiro Harada for 4Gamer (translated by Gematsu).

Something "on the same scale" as an MMO suggests that perhaps we'll get a large open-world singleplayer RPG, or even an RPG with more controlled multiplayer elements. The game is being made to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary, and we can expect a full announcement this year, with development taking a few more years yet (provided Level-5 can get the support that Hino mentioned).

"Although we say it’s a game for the 20th anniversary, it won’t come out this year. Rather, we wanted to make the announcement in the year of the anniversary," he said. "For example, Ni no Kuni was a 10th anniversary celebration title, but it wasn’t actually released until two years later.”

What would like to see next from Level-5?

Samuel Horti
Samuel Horti

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.