Late last year, it was reported that several PlatinumGames veterans had seemingly left the studio. While only Bayonetta Origins’ Abebe Tinari confirmed this news, it looks increasingly likely that Astral Chain director Takahisa Taura has followed suit, potentially forming a new company in the process (thanks, Nintendo Everything).
Initial rumours about Taura’s PlatinumGames departure arose after the director (alongside several other Platinum vets) removed all mention of the studio from his social media bios. Adding fuel to the fire, one fan on Twitter noted that Taura’s Facebook profile has been updated with a new place of work: Eel Game Studio.
We know very little about this studio or Taura’s role in it at the time of writing, though its registration info (as flagged on ResetEra) states that it was established in late 2024 and is based in Tokyo. We know, shocking.
That’s not to say that fans aren’t already piling on the speculation, mind you. Earlier this week, a Reddit user (who swiftly deleted their account) took to the PlatinumGames forum, claiming to have information about ‘Astral Chain 2‘. According to their story — allegedly sourced from “someone who previously worked at Platinum Games” — a sequel was in development at Platinum, but conflicts from within the studio and from Nintendo meant that the project was eventually rebooted with the Big N at the helm (studio head Atsushi Inaba said that the series was under Nintendo’s control back in 2021).
It’s an elaborate read, but one that almost makes sense the longer you go with it — if you can get past the suspicious account deletion and the “Platinium” typo in the topic, that is:
If (and it’s a big if) Astral Chain’s director truly has left PlatinumGames and has since formed a new studio, there’s every chance that a full sequel could be in the works. We’re reading all this with a hefty pinch of salt, naturally, but it’s fun to dream.
Taura joined the likes of Metal Gear Rising’s Kenji Saito, The Wonderful 101’s Masaki Yamanaka and the aforementioned Abebe Tinari with the bio updates late last year, seemingly confirming a huge blow to the studio’s talent.
That said, it would be foolish to count PlatinumGames out. Just yesterday at Xbox’s Developer_Direct 2025, the studio popped up with Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja to reveal Ninja Gaiden 4 for Xbox, PlayStation and PC. No, a Nintendo version hasn’t been announced (yet), but it’s clear that work is still underway from the Bayonetta developer, regardless of how many of its veterans may have left.