Studio veteran steps away after 19 years of service

In considerably surprising information for the preventing recreation neighborhood, developer Toshimichi Mori introduced his departure from veteran anime recreation studio Arc System Works. Mori introduced that he was leaving the studio in a brand new and succinct assertion posted to Twitter simply yesterday.

“I’ve one thing to report back to all the customers,” begins the message. “I, Toshimichi Mori, have left Arc System works, the corporate I labored at for a few years. I’ve nothing however gratitude in direction of the employees of Arc System Works and others who’ve labored with me, in addition to all of the customers who supported us. Thanks from the underside of my coronary heart.”

Mori has been a stalwart member of Arc System Works for simply shy of 20 years, the place he has labored on widespread preventing recreation franchises comparable to Responsible Gear, whereas being finest referred to as the creator of one other tightly-held anime scrapper, BlazBlue. Mori’s departure, understandably, leaves questions hanging over the way forward for the latter franchise, questions which the developer references in his assertion with out a solution.

ご報告です。 pic.twitter.com/wACWEOfxVh

— 森P (@zatuyoP) September 25, 2022

“I’ll depart from Arc System Works,” continues Mori. “This may occasionally trigger some emotions of tension, particularly amongst followers of the BlazBlue sequence. For this, I sincerely apologize. In the meanwhile I’m considering of making and delivering a recreation for the customers indirectly, and am going to focus my energy on that endeavor. Your help can be a lot appreciated.”

Whereas it sounds, clearly, that Mori intends to stay in recreation improvement, maybe focusing his abilities and talents on a brand new title on an impartial foundation, this doesn’t routinely spell doom for BlazBlue. Whereas the franchise IP will clearly stay with ArcSys, there are a lot of gifted preventing recreation builders at that studio who labored on the sequence. And so, hopefully, BlazBlue will be capable of proceed its personal legacy in some type of style, even when its “father” has moved on to new initiatives.

Both manner, Toshimichi Mori’s contributions to the preventing recreation scene over the previous twenty years can’t be understated, and it is going to be very thrilling to see what the trade veteran has in retailer for pastures new.