A designer who worked on FromSoftware’s Bloodborne and Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 16 has opened up his own studio by the name of Velux.
Per Automaton Media (which, in turn, cites a Japanese press release), designer Sho Igarashi will serve as the newly-created Velux Studio’s CEO. He’s worked not only with FromSoftware and Square Enix, but also with Granblue studio Cygames and Forspoken developer Luminous Productions.
According to Automaton’s translation of the press release, Igarashi’s “expertise lies in battle production” (that’s Automaton’s wording, not the press release’s), although it’s not clear whether he definitely worked on combat design for the aforementioned games.
We don’t know much about Velux Studio, except that per Automaton, the company will be making games across PC, consoles, and mobile devices, and it’ll include both “high-end” and “casual” titles in its remit (again, that’s Automaton’s wording).
The goal here is to “make games for game lovers”, or so the press release says, and the studio will be working with Unreal Engine 5 in-house, so it sounds like nothing will be outsourced.
Right now, we don’t know exactly what Velux is working on, although if a couple of preview images released on the studio’s new official website are anything to go by, it looks like the debut game will have a sci-fi flavor to it.
Velux also has an X (formerly Twitter) account, although naturally, since the studio is new, there isn’t much on there yet. Still, you know who to follow if you want up-to-the-minute news about this new company.
Igarashi is far from the only decorated designer to be starting up his own studio. In recent years, we’ve seen studios started up by several ex-Disco Elysium developers, as well as staffers from big companies like Bethesda, EA, and Capcom, among others.
It remains to be seen what Velux Studio will reveal as its debut title, but let’s hope we find out sooner rather than later. Stay tuned for more.
