Capcom veteran Itsuno hires Devil May Cry, Street Fighter royalty for new studio | VGC

Speaking to VGC at Lightspeed Osaka ahead of the announcement, Itsuno said that around a third of the studio’s around 40 employees had come from Capcom, and that he believed his first title at the new company will benefit from their shared experience.

“Although we’re a new studio working on a new game, it’s good to be able to work with people who I trust like Mr. Nakagawa,” he said. “I have been working with him for decades, since Devil May Cry 2, and he’s one of those core members who understands me very well.

“Ikeno-san is also participating as an art director this time, and Bengus-san has a very high level of understanding and is a very unique man – he was a legendary designer at Capcom.”

He added: “It’s all about a sense of trust… we know exactly what each of us want. And it’s not just these three people: I also hired some other people I worked with from before at Capcom, so even though this is a new studio, I’ve gathered those people who I trust to make sure that this is going to be a successful game.”

“Very few studios in Japan are taking on the challenge of building original AAA IP from scratch. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” commented Itsuno. The designer told VGC in our soon-to-be-published interview that he left Capcom to avoid the possibility he’d spend his remaining years creating sequels.

“It’s not like I don’t want to make sequels,” he said. “I really want to make both, sequels and new IP, but Capcom is kind of difficult for that. With DMC5 and Dragons’ Dogma 2, a lot of things that I wanted to do had been done, and I’m pretty happy about that.”