Yusuke Hashimoto, the director of Bayonetta 2 and producer of Bayonetta, has left PlatinumGames.
Hashimoto announced his departure from the renowned Japanese developer on Twitter, saying: “This tweet will be a little more personal than usual. Yesterday, January 31st, was my last day at PlatinumGames. The memories I made during my 13 years at Platinum, working with dozens of talented individuals on Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2, and Star Fox Zero, are priceless to me. Let me take this opportunity to share my thanks with anyone who has worked with me, supported me, or played my games. I hope to take the experiences I gained at Platinum and use them on whatever I work on in the future.”
Hashimoto had been at PlatinumGames since it was founded in 2007 – as something of a Japanese development dream-team boasting the likes of Shinji Mikami (who left in 2010 to make The Evil Within games), Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya. As Hashimoto’s tweet makes clear, there’s currently no indication as to where he might work in the future.
Life goes on at PlatinumGames though. Yesterday, as detailed in this blogpost, the developer unveiled a forthcoming Switch game called Astral Chain, due for an August 30 release: “The idea for Astral Chain came from none other than Takahisa Taura, the lead game designer for NieR:Automata. Astral Chain brings you to a bold, near-future cyberpunk metropolis, featuring character designs by Masakazu Katsura, the acclaimed artist behind beloved manga and anime like Zetman and Video Girl Ai.”
For more PlatinumGames-related news, watch the company’s website.
