There have been many stories in the gaming space in 2023 that have shocked and awed us. We just went through one such story last week with the controversy surrounding The Game Awards. But easily, one of the more shocking tales of 2023 was the departure of Hideki Kamiya from PlatinumGames. The man was a legend thanks to his time at the company he helped make. He was the director of many games, including the ones that helped make the company famous, like Bayonetta. Despite his long history with them and his teases about the future of certain series, he upped and left without an explanation and is currently on a forced 1-year hiatus before he can make another video game.
Due to all of this, fans have been wondering what happened to force Kamiya to leave a place he clearly loved and enjoyed making games with. Finally, IGN got the answers, as Kamiya told them that this all boiled down to trust:
“My work with PlatinumGames was based on a relationship of trust with the company. I decided to leave because I felt that the direction the company was heading in was different from my beliefs as a developer. Without that element of trust, I couldn’t continue working there, and so I left, so that I could continue working in what I consider to be the right way.”
That might sound rather poetic or even odd, but Kamiya has hinted that this was the reason he left. And it speaks to a “familiar issue” that many people have. If you don’t work in a place that values what you do and wants to do what you feel is best, why would you stay there?
And he harped on that when he noted:
“I don’t think of games as products, but rather as works of art. I want to put my artistry into games and deliver games that could only be made by Hideki Kamiya, so that players can enjoy Hideki Kamiya games exactly as they are. I decided to leave the company and forge my own path, to continue making games that reflect the developers who made them.”
A very interesting way of looking at things, and this will definitely get gamers talking as they wonder what direction PlatinumGames is going in. Plus, now you have to wonder what games Kamiya has in mind since he can’t work on past ones due to the studio having the IP license and not him.
