There’s a shocking and detailed new rumor about what happened behind the scenes at PlatinumGames, and it apparently revolves around Astral Chain 2.
This rumor was posted at the PlatinumGamesInc subreddit, and the redditor who posted it already deleted their account (or they chose the username deleted). So this could all turn out to be completely false, especially with no one emerging to corroborate it. Keep that in mind as you read our summary of the rumor.
Pre-production for Astral Chain 2 started as early as early 2021, but immediately ran into problems. It immediately looks like the issue is with management, as they put too many of the Astral Chain 2 staff to work on other games, such that six months passed with zero progress.
On top of that, PlatinumGames quietly made budget cuts at all levels. No one was fired, but things got so bad that their HR department went without lighting for months.
In 2022, Kamiya allegedly got Astral Chain 2 and another game called Steel Colossus back in production, after getting investment from third party companies.
But almost immediately, Nintendo checked in on the game and they were not happy. They threatened to take the project to another studio, seeing that both money and time had been squandered without progress on the project.
It was in the middle of this situation where Kamiya got into disagreements with ‘key decision makers’ that led to his exist from PlatinumGames. Our source claims they don’t know if Astral Chain 2 is still in development, or still with PlatinumGames, but they claim the company really is in a bad situation at the moment.
As we know some fans will imagine some connections they made, we’re going to point out some things they may not want to believe. Kamiya may have seemed like the hero in this story, but as vice president at PlatinumGames, he himself may be responsible for mismanaging Astral Chain 2’s development.
It’s also worth remembering that PlatinumGames received investment from TenCent, the same company once rumored to want to acquire Kadokawa, and the same company now embroiled in scandal with the Guillemots over at Ubisoft. Kamiya himself made claims about how TenCent caused undesirable changes in the company in a recent interview.
This rumor also seems to line up with prior rumors about goings on behind the scenes at PlatinumGames, and the overall picture just isn’t very good. We chose not to cover rumored details about Astral Chain 2 itself, because if the company itself could be on the ropes, what would even be the point?
If this second source is telling the truth, even more former employees could be emerging to air out even more dirty laundry on what was once Nintendo’s most valuable independent third party.
