Astral Chain Director Takahisa Taura Announces Departure from PlatinumGames to Found New Studio

Takahisa Taura, known for his work with PlatinumGames as game designer on NieR: Automata and as director on Astral Chain, has announced that he is leaving the studio. As caught by social media platform X user Genki_JPN, the announcement was made through Japanese publication Famitsu, where Taura revealed that he is opening up his own studio, dubbed Eel Game Studio.

While Taura hasn’t revealed any details on what kinds of projects he will be involved with at Eel Game Studio, he has said that he is one of the studio’s founding members. More details will likely become clearer once the studio fills out its development team and starts full-fledged production work on its first major project.

Far from the first creative lead to have left PlatinumGames, Hideki Kamiya announced his departure from the company all the way back in 2023. Since then, Kamiya has announced that he is working with a new studio, CLOVERS, on a sequel to classic adventure game Okami.

“We are truly grateful for his creative ideas, leadership, and contribution to the growth of PlatinumGames from our start-up to this very day,” PlatinumGames wrote in announcing Kamiya’s departure. “We believe that he will continue to succeed in his future endeavours as a game creator. We are looking forward to seeing the game industry grow into a better place with him in.”

In the meantime, PlatinumGames has been working with Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja on Ninja Gaiden 4. Back in January, Team Ninja producer Fumihiko Yasuda revealed that the idea for the studio to team up with PlatinumGames for development came from Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer. It also helped that Koei Tecmo president Hisashi Koinuma and PlatinumGames president Atsushi Inaba were good friends.

“I think everyone knows that the Ninja Gaiden series has been on hold for more than a decade, but Team Ninja has been considering making a new title for a long time,” Yasuda said. “However, we were having difficulty deciding on a plan. Then Koei Tecmo president Hisashi Koinuma and PlatinumGames president Atsushi Inaba, who are from the same generation and are good friends, had a chance to discuss the matter.”

“After that, Phil Spencer from Microsoft suggested that the three companies – PlatinumGames, Koei Tecmo and Microsoft – work together on a new numbered title in the Ninja Gaiden series, and that’s how the project got started,” he continued. “We have developed action games ourselves, but because we were going to be making a new Ninja Gaiden for the first time in over a decade, PlatinumGames had already made several great action titles, such as Bayonetta and NieR: Automata, so we wanted to work with them, and that’s how the collaboration began.”

Ninja Gaiden 4 is currently in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game is slated for launch in Fall 2025, and will also be available on PC and Xbox Game Pass on day one of its release. As part of its revival of the Ninja Gaiden franchise, Team Ninja also launched an Unreal Engine 5 remaster of Ninja Gaiden 2, dubbed Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, back in January.