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Keisuke Kikuchi

We’ve spoken to Fatal Frame producer Keisuke Kikuchi from Koei Tecmo a couple of times previously around the release of Fairy Tail on Switch. What some may not know is that Kikuchi has also been a longtime developer on the horror series. He’s been working on Fatal Frame since the very beginning when it started up two decades ago.

With the new version of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water on Switch from Koei Tecmo, the franchise is now making a bit of a comeback. We spoke with Kikuchi to talk about the possibility of more remasters, the Hollywood movie, collaborations, and more.

Our full discussion can be found below.

When you think of Fatal Frame, one of the first things that comes to mind is the Camera Obscura. However, when the series originally began, the development team actually considered a few other objects instead.

Nintendo Everything recently spoke with Keisuke Kikuchi, the producer of the Fatal Frame. There was some talk about the new release of Maiden of Black Water on Switch, but also discussion about the franchise and general. And when asked if there were other objects that were initially thought about before settling on the camera, he said:

Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water costumes

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water producer Keisuke Kikuchi has opened up about the game’s upcoming remaster, including how it came to be, the new photo mode, improved graphics, and fresh costumes. The news comes as part of a recent interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu.

Here’s our translation of the notable parts of the discussion:

After being on hiatus for several years, Fatal Frame is finally back in the spotlight. Maiden of Black Water was the last entry in the series having first launched on Wii U in 2014. Koei Tecmo is now bringing back that game by re-releasing it on modern platforms, including Switch.

Japanese magazine Famitsu spoke with producer Keisuke Kikuchi this week and at one point, the two discussed the future of Fatal Frame. Kikuchi was asked if the series could start up again off the back of a good response Maiden of Black Water. He responded favorably, and indicated that the team hopes it’ll lead to a new game.

Kikuchi’s full words:

As is tradition for Famitsu, the magazine spoke with a ton of different developers about their ambitions for 2021. One developer who participated was Keisuke Kekuchi, who’s leading the Gust brand at Koei Tecmo and is also the producer of Fatal Frame.

Kekuchi shared the following with Famitsu, as translated by Nintendo Everything:

With the lack of Fatal Frame games in recent years, fans have been very much anticipating a new entry. We asked series producer Keisuke Kikuchi about the possibility of the franchise appearing on Switch a few months ago, and while he seemed potentially interested, no promises were made.

We saw the strong fan reaction after we published our article and decided to give things another go by asking Kikuchi about Fatal Frame once again. We also brought up the possibility of remasters since we know that’s something some of our readers expressed interest in.

Here’s our full exchange with Kikuchi:

We recently spoke with Keisuke Kikuchi, the producer of the Fairy Tail RPG heading to Switch in 2020. Aside from discussing topics like how long the game will be and talk about DLC, Kikuchi also expressed interest in wanting to turn this into a franchise when we asked about the possibility of original characters.

Here’s our full discussion with Kikuchi:

Fairy Tail

Next year’s Fairy Tail game for Switch will be fully playable in English as far as text is concerned. However, there are no plans to include any sort of dub. Producer Keisuke Kikuchi told us that the original Japanese anime voice cast is performing for the title, but there are no current plans for English voices.

Fairy Tail launches for Switch on March 20, 2020. We’ll have more from our interview with Kikuchi soon.

The last entry in the Fatal Frame series was Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. It originally debuted in Japan back in 2014, and would later find its way west a year later.

While the franchise has been dormant for several years, series producer Keisuke Kikuchi has expressed interest in bringing a new entry to Switch. Kikuchi currently has his hands full with the upcoming Fairy Tail RPG, but told Nintendo Everything that he’d be open to revisiting Koei Tecmo’s horror IP.

Switch is really the first time that Koei Tecmo and Gust’s Atelier series has been prominent on a Nintendo console. Atelier Lydie & Suelle got things started, followed by the Atelier Arland trilogy, Atelier Lulua, and the upcoming Atelier Ryza. Despite the franchise not really being associated with Nintendo platforms until this generation, the IP seems to be gaining some traction on Switch.

In an interview with GamesBeat, Gust’s associate head of development Keisuke Kikuchi said that Switch sales are “catching up with the PS4 version due to constant growth”. However, Steam “dominates sales” in Asia. Japan is where Atelier sells the most on the whole. Kikuchi also mentioned in the interview that the console versions of Atelier “have almost had the same performance throughout the years, but the best-selling title overall would definitely be Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book.”


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