NIS explains why a new Phantom Brave was made after 20 years

Nippon Ichi Software surprised fans earlier in the year by announcing Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, which means the original game is finally getting a sequel after twenty years. In a recent interview, the company explained how it came to be.

Interestingly, it sounds like NIS didn’t really attempt making a sequel previously. Things were only set in motion after a western poll showed the popularity of Phantom Brave’s characters.

Nippon Ichi Software’s Yuya Hosono said the following in an interview with Dengeki:

Could you please start by providing details on how the first new Phantom Brave was created after over twenty years?

I thought you would be interested in that. (Laughs). First, a poll held in America of the most popular Nippon Ichi Software characters was a trigger. At the time our company had released several of our games in America, but we thought the top spots would probably be held by characters from the Disgaea series. However, when we looked at the results, Phantom Brave characters ranked higher than the Disgaea characters.

It was honestly unexpected to see these results, but it made us realize “Even after twenty years, there is still a desire for Marona and her team”. Our American subsidiary NIS America also asked “Why don’t we somehow try to make a move?”, and we understood there is a strong fanbase in Japan too, so we started development with the feeling of “Well, why don’t we try it?”

Moreover, our company’s chief series is Disgaea, but because we have wanted to make one more IP to be in line with it for a long time, I thought that meant it was a good time to start development on a new Phantom Brave.

In these twenty years, has there been any movement to make a sequel to Phantom Brave?

Actually, there truly wasn’t. Remakes for other hardware were released and an additional scenario was released on Wii, but I can’t see how that would be a sequel. The original is twenty years old and few staff who worked on the game at that time remain, which is also a reason why it was hard to get moving.

From those conditions, a new game was being made for the first in twenty years, the staff was bewildered and I think all the players were too. In actuality, when the production of this game was announced, I can’t describe to you how excited the reporters and everyone was.

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero launches for Switch on January 30, 2025, and if you missed the news, we covered it here. Thanks to Dengeki for the interview excerpt above.

Translation provided by Philip Proctor, Simon Griffin, and SatsumaFS on behalf of Nintendo Everything.