Silent Hill, Gravity Rush Creator Forms New Studio With Sony Japan Studio Alum

Three Sony Japan developers, Junya Okura, Kazunobu Sato, and Keiichiro Toyama, have left the company to create Bokeh Game Studio.Toyama, who is best known as the director of Silent Hill and the Gravity Rush series, will serve as the studio’s creative director alongside lead Gravity Rush designer, Okura, and Sato, who was the lead designer of The Last Guardian. The three will lead Bokeh as an independent game studio with the goal of rediscovering the joy in making games.

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announcement video released on December 2. “I want to share that feeling to the players. This is what I’ll aim for from now on.”

The announcement video features the three developers sitting at a bar talking about their shared excitement for Bokeh. Okura, who will work as the studio’s game director, mentioned that until the formation of this studio, there was always a company providing them with a work environment. Now that they’re independent, they’ll have to prepare everything themselves, he said.

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“It is hard,” Okura said. “There are responsibilities, but we have our freedom. That is the most important. I want to enjoy creating from now on.”

Sato, who will serve as the studio’s producer, said founding a company came with many challenges but that advice from those around them helped bring this idea to life. He said the team can now just focus on making games.

“I look forward to it,” Sato said. “Many people we’ve worked with in the past are joining us too. I’m convinced that we’ll be able to deliver something everyone will enjoy.”

There’s no word on who else is joining the studio, although Sato hinted that people they’ve worked with in the past will be joining them, nor is there a word of what they’re working on or when we can expect to hear anything about it. If you watch the video though, you can catch some glimpses of artwork that may or may not be concept art.

Read IGN’s thoughts on these developers’ latest games in our Gravity Rush review, Gravity Rush 2 review, and our review of The Last Guardian. Check out our top 10 most terrifying scares in video games, which features a scare from Toyama’s Silent Hill, after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide make for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. Source