The new CEO of PlatinumGames, Atsushi Inaba, has been quite chatty about the company this week. Yesterday, he talked about the company exploring projects that differed from its usual IPs. All the while, Inaba hinted at the company expanding further into live service games. However, that doesn’t mean the CEO isn’t ignoring Platinum’s storied past. In a recent interview with IGN Japan (spotted by VGC), Inaba shared his desire to revive the long-canceled Scalebound, and he wants Microsoft and Xbox to help.
It was Microsoft that pulled the plug on Scalebound in the end, but Inaba believes the Xbox team can help it revive. In the interview, he mentioned that the game’s famed director, Hideki Kamiya, “has always wanted to do Scalebound. So we’d like to have a proper discussion with Microsoft.”
Kamiya also commented aiming his words and Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer. He said Platinum would “like to do something about it. Phil! Let’s do it together!”
Bringing the dead back to life
Scalebound, for those who don’t know or recall, was an RPG where you partnered up with a friendly dragon. The game consisted of third-person exploration, with combat that would shift from a third- to a first-person perspective. Scalebound made some waves when Microsoft revealed it during its Xbox press conference at E3 2014. The game was in development for three years before getting canceled in 2017 and slowly fading from the consciousness of gamers everywhere.
Microsoft didn’t fully reveal the reason why the game got canceled at the time. Speaking to IGN in 2017, the company simply stated that the production was ended after “careful deliberation.” In 2019, Inaba told VGC that the cancellation was a failure from both Microsoft and the developer. Although, he admits PlatinumGames “didn’t do all the things we needed to do as a developer.”
Clearly, the cancelation of Scalebound has been a sore spot for Platinum all these years. It was in development for both Xbox and PC at the time, so, if it does come back in some form, I expect to see it heading our way. Of course, if Microsoft and Xbox bite, then I can see it heading to Game Pass as well. But, of course, that depends on Xbox and Phil Spencer.
