Expect to see more from Tomonobu Itagaki soon

The developer seems to be coming back after a long absence, but what could he be working on?
Text: Jonas Mäki
Published 2019-11-04

Do you remember Tomonobu Itagaki? He's the creator of games like the Dead or Alive series and Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, and for saying pretty eye-catching stuff, including the (in)famous presentation of Ninja Gaiden 2, where he said:

"Ninja Gaiden 2 will be so ambitious that when other developer plays it, they will lose motivation and confidence in their games."

So why are we bringing him up again? Well, we aren't, he actually did it himself. During the weekend, he took to his official Facebook account to simply write:

"Hey guys, I'm sorry for long absent. See you soon!"

Itagaki has been silent for a long time and, besides the badly-reviewed Devil's Third from 2015, we haven't heard much at all about what he is doing. That said, we did report back in 2017 that he had created a brand new studio in Italy after leaving his position at Valhalla Studios (although not leaving the company).

A reasonable guess would be that it is either related to X019 - as Itagaki for a long time worked exclusively with Microsoft - or The Game Awards next month. That said, it might just as well be something completely different.

Do you remember Itagaki and are you looking forward to his return?

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