One thing that often gets forgotten about the game design/development process is that once you’re done with a title, and it’s released, you need to move on. It’s true that many games don’t have that immediate “stop” due to patches, DLC, and other things. But there are a few titles that are truly “complete” at launch, so the team can focus on other things. The recent release of Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp is an excellent example of this. The team at Wayforward put everything they had into the remake, and outside of some random bug fixes, they’re done with the game.
The title got great reviews from critics, and fans seemed to have loved it too. So the question is, what’s next for Wayforward? In a chat with Minnmax, the head of the recent reboot, James Montagna, noted that he did have ideas on what he’d love to work with Nintendo on in the future, and his picks likely isn’t what you’re expecting:
“Well, Kuru Kuru Kururin is up there,” Montagna replied. “I would say it’s probably number one. I’d love to work on something obscure, you know? So for me I think about games like Kuru Kuru Kururin, I think of games like Rhythm Heaven [and] WarioWare. There’s also things like Chibi Robo – that would be interesting to explore.”
You might be surprised by this for a simple reason. When most game developers get to work with a big publisher on one of their IPs, the desire to do one of the “big-time ones” is always in the back of their minds. However, Montagna noted that while it would be great to work on a game with Mario or Link in it, there are already teams out there making those games and making them well.
So in his mind, why work on something that people are already doing great when you can bring back something that hasn’t been thought about in a while? He’s not wrong, as Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp wasn’t something people expected when it was first announced a few years back, but now people hope the franchise continues! Whether that is with Wayforward or the original team at Intelligent Systems remains to be seen.
But if Montagna gets to make one of these “lesser known franchises,” perhaps he and the Wayforward team will get the chance to breathe new life into them and make them popular in the mainstream. You never know until you try!
