Game publisher Square Enix recently stated their reason for recruiting a popular Japanese artist Yoji Shinkawa for upcoming video game Left Alive.
Left Alive publisher explains recruitment
Japanese artist Yoji Shinkawa is known for this great masterpieces for the popular video game series Metal Gear Solid. Producer Shinji Hashimoto gave their piece to a publication in an exclusive interview how they made a partnership with the artist.
I’ve known Kojima-san for quite a while now, we’re of similar age, and I’ve been speaking to him for a long time. I think it’s been over ten years, and he is someone I respect a lot in the industry. Besides games, I’ve also been in charge of Square Enix’s merchandising division as well. I’m not involved in that at the moment, but I have been looking after our action figures for a long time.
In addition to doing things for our own properties like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest, we also do some second-party figures. If there is a series that there has good characters out there, we want to help make them. We’ve done a lot of Metal Gear Solid figures, and obviously as part of that we have worked with Kojima-san and Yoji Shinkawa himself for quite a while. I’ve built a relationship and trust with them.
When they went out on their own, we spoke, and I asked “if you’ve got time and you’re free, maybe we can do something together.” Of course coming with a sudden proposition and asking him to work on a game stright away would have been difficult, but since we had a long relationship going, it was actually easy to do. Timing worked out very well.
Collaboration with Kojima in the future
Hashimoto divulged that they wanted to lengendary gaming personality Hideo Kojima, but he was too busy with the upcoming video game Death Stranding. However, he did not close the possibility of collaboration in the future.
There is still no firm release date of the game as of the moment. It will be launched on the PlayStation 4.
Source: DualShockers