Level-5 will continue with Mystery Journey as a new series, more Switch talk, looking into a movie
Nintendo Life published a new interview with Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino. Hino had much to say about Layton’s Mystery Journey, including how he wants to make “Mystery Journey” a new series, supporting Switch in the future, and a possible new movie.
We’ve rounded up some of the more interesting comments from Hino below. You can read the full interview here.
On why Layton’s Mystery Journey doesn’t star Professor Layton…
Hino-san: So, there’s been six titles in the Professor Layton series. I felt that every time he would be solving this grand mystery, and it’s gotten to the point where these mysteries have to do with saving the world. I wanted to create a game where it was more about solving everyday mysteries. Since Layton’s already been to that sphere of saving the world, having him go back to solve these everyday mysteries was kind of not scaling correctly. So I wanted to do something like a reset, and bring in a new character, and then maybe scale up in the same way Layton did, where we start with small mysteries and then maybe five or six games later have a much bigger mystery.
For this mystery journey, it’s a lot of small puzzles. For this game, there’s actually more puzzles than in the other games, it’s a big story. So, I hope you enjoy it. Actually, Professor Layton might come out and make an appearance, so look forward to that, too!
On whether the new game is like a soft reboot…
Hino-san: Yeah. It is a new start, a new journey for the series.
On any plans for more games starring Kat or a trilogy…
Hino-san: We are trying to do this series with the Mystery Journey tag again, but we’re not really sure if Kat’s going to be the main protagonist on the next one. It might be someone new again. But this Mystery Journey series will definitely continue from here. We haven’t decided exactly where, though, so we can’t say too much on that front.
On the lack of a Switch version for Layton’s Mystery Journey…
Hino-san: The reason why we chose the 3DS is because there’s a large Layton fanbase on 3DS given that we’ve released other Layton titles for the platform. We wanted to cater to that original fanbase that we already have and has been with us for a long time. Also, we are releasing it for smartphones. The reason why we didn’t bring it to Switch is because we hadn’t started development for the Switch at the time that we were actively working on this game. For the future, we’ll look into maybe porting it to Switch and making the next game in the series on the Switch.
On the next Professor Layton movie…
Hino-san: Most of Level-5 games have been released in some kind of movie or video in Japan. Especially with Layton, I really enjoyed working with them. There are offers about maybe reaching out again for a movie, so that’s being looked into.
