Scalebound – Platinum’s biggest game yet

GameCentral talks to the co-founder of Platinum Games about Drew the douchebag hero and Western boss battles.

Since Platinum Games are one of our favourite developers working today, getting to meet Hideki Kamiya at last August’s Gamescom event was a real thrill. Especially as he turned out to be a really interesting and friendly guy, despite his reputation for being a Twitter grouch. The only problem was that we didn’t really get to see much of Xbox One exclusive Scalebound, and at E3 we still didn’t see a lot more – just an expanded look at a four-player boss battle.



It did look good though, and it inspired us to quiz Kamiya about the Japanese penchant for boss battles and discover a surprising revelation about what games he plays in his own time. He also offered hints about the game’s role-playing elements and the nature of its story and already-controversial protagonist.

Other than sometime next year, Scalebound still doesn’t have a release date – so there’s still plenty of time to show the rest of the game in detail. But we’re more desperate than ever to finally get our hands on Platinum’s biggest budget project so far…


Formats: Xbox One

Publisher: Microsoft Studios

Developer: Platinum Games

Release Date: 2017

(Before the interview properly begins we start chatting with creative producer Jean Pierre Kellams, who is also translating Kamiya. He asks whether we were at the Microsoft conference and if we saw the Scalebound demo.)

JPK: It’s hard, obviously we’re an action RPG but it’s so hard to show that kind of game at a show.

GC: You’re stealing my… that was going to be my first question.

All: [laughs]

JPK: I’m sorry! But, yeah, it’s really hard to show a game like this at a show. So, we’ve got a benefit in that we have this action experience and we can kind of put it in a wrapper as a more action-y action RPG, but it’s really hard to show this kind of game. So if you think about Bayonetta… you can take a slice of Bayonetta and basically that is representative of the experience that you will have playing Bayonetta. But it’s much harder to take a game that’s got a really broad set of experiences, to pick just one little slice.

And I think, personally speaking, Nintendo kind of realised that. And that’s why they have that huge Zelda booth with all the different things that you can do in Zelda, and you can spend forever in their Zelda theme park. Because that’s one of the only ways of putting that game out there, for people to understand. Because Skyrim and games like that are never shown as a demo… it’s a tough thing.



We really want people to understand what it’s like to play with a dragon, and have that experience. And we’d shown our overworld, and now we’ve shown a boss fight, but it’s really hard to get that whole experience into a single demo.

GC: I was just talking actually, with Dishonored 2’s Harvey Smith, about E3 trailer syndrome. And about how standard video game marketing is all but useless for so many types of games.

HK: If you think about the traditional marketing scheme, you’ve got your action trailer, your story trailer, your ‘this feature’ trailer, and you kind of flash those out and you eventually explain the entirety of a game in that matter, in a traditional marketing scheme. And we did one CG trailer, which was kind of the teaser announce thing, and after that we’ve just showed gameplay video. But the gameplay video is kind of locked down on certain parts of the game and doesn’t really explain the full breadth of the game.

So how do you make a trailer that’s about going to a town and meeting people and taking requests and going out and grinding and upgrading your character, and then going out and repeating that core combat loop, and that kind of adventure loop in the game, as a trailer? It’s really hard to make them.

We haven’t even touched the story yet, so we still need to explain the story. So if you think about the video we put out I think, just personally speaking, we haven’t explained enough for people to kind of get a full vision of what Scalebound is. And I want to keep explaining more as we move forward.


If you were telling somebody who was just your friend, ‘What is Scalebound?’ What would you tell them? Simply put it’s a game where you fight with your dragon and adventure in a large world, and experience what that adventure and what the feeling would be like. That’s what Scalebound is to me.

GC: It’s great to see you again, but the problem I have with this interview is I haven’t really seen anything new on the game since Gamescom last August – because the boss battle was briefly shown then too. Without meaning it in that way, what have you been working on since that time?

HK: [laughs] The video that we showed here at E3 and the video that we showed at Gamescom kind of have the same intent, and it’s to show combat with your dragon. They’re combat at different scales, but it’s the same intent.

What we’ve been doing for 10 months is making the world big. So, building all of the encounters, all of the loot, the customisation, all of the things that are going to make it a large, rounded experience. And what we’re working out right now is figuring out the best way to present that to people so they understand how broad the experience is.

Scalebound – unfortunately it’s not out till next year

GC: I’ve been looking around online to try and gauge what the reputation of the game is, and I don’t think it’ll surprise you that the word ‘douchebag’ came up quite a lot in regards to the main character.


All: [laughs]

HK: We really haven’t talked about the story or really explained the character too much, so people are jumping to conclusions that may be unfounded. And that’s fine, but more than that I don’t make things in games to have people not hate them.

I make things in games that I really like, that are kind of strong things that I want to play and I want to experience, and I’m not really concerned about making it so everybody loves it. I’m concerned about making the things that I feel are true to my vision, because that’s really what interests me about making games.

GC: And that’s why I like Platinum Games.

HK: [laughs] So, thinking back to Bayonetta. People said lots of things about her when she came out, and if I’d just gone and wholesale changed the way that I made video games I’d probably never arrive at anything I liked.

GC: No, absolutely.

JPK: I think that reaction… I understand where it’s coming from, and it’s part of the limited information, but some of it doesn’t resonate with me. Because a lot of the people who are posting those things, like: ‘Oh, I don’t like the headphones’. They’re dudes that walk around with headphones on all day. If you go out and look at the people that are walking around they’ve all got headphones around their ears. It’s a little weird.

GC: I think with Bayonetta people started second guessing each other over whether she was sexist or not, and then when they found out she was designed by a woman they didn’t know what to think.

HK: From just a basic stance I don’t listen to the noise. Because if you think about Bayonetta, like everyone was saying, ‘Oh, she should take her glasses off! Oh, that hairdo is ridiculous!’ And then what happens? A whole bunch of people buy the glasses.

And people look at Drew and they they’re like, ‘Why is he wearing headphones? He’s such a douchebag!’ And now PDP are making prototypes of the headphone so we can sell them. [Points to a prototype sitting on the coach opposite.]

GC: Those are actually real mass market things?

JPK: Yeah, they’re on PDP’s booth. We’re working on prototypes right now, to put the headphones out there.

HK: People are always going to say something about anything that you do to a character that’s any kind of spice that takes them from just plain vanilla. They’re always going to say something.

GC: People always want things to be more boring, more familiar. I find it very frustrating.

HK: People want to polish things, to like this really kind of just…

GC: Well, until it’s completely featureless.

HK: But what’s cool is when there’s like this spice and imperfections and kind of craziness, right?

Hideki Kamiya – he has the biggest backlog in gaming

GC: And to that point, I preferred Bayonetta’s first haircut.

PR woman: [laughs]

HK: Then we will take that into account when we design her haircut when we start doing 3, if we ever make 3.

(The room is suddenly filled with gasps of shock, not just from us and the UK PR but also the other Microsoft and Platinum Games people.)

GC: Wha… what?! You can’t tease me like that!

(Widespread laughter)

GC: Are you thinking of doing 3?

HK: Of course we want to make 3.

GC: [meekly] OK.

HK: Why should it end at 2?

GC: I don’t think it should end at 2! Have you spoken to any publishers about this?

HK: No, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking in my head what that game would be. I’ve got ideas in my head for Okami 2 as well.

Microsoft PR woman: What?!

(More shocked laughter from everyone.)

Platinum PR woman: I didn’t know this!

GC: What are you doing, teasing us like this!

HK: We’ve got other Scalebounds in our heads too.

GC: Now you’ve said that, Platinum better not go bust before you make all those!

HK: [laughs] Exactly. We’re not allowed to go out of business.

GC: Okay, a sensible question now. I’m sure it’s no accident you were showing a boss battle to demonstrate Scalebound, because it’s something Platinum are well known for. But also many Japanese developers as well. So I wonder, from your perspective, why you think Western developers so often can’t seem to design good boss battles.

HK: We’re really going to through you a curveball here: I don’t play Western games often, so I can’t really tell you where they’re getting it wrong.

All: [The others clearly know about Kamiya’s game-playing preferences and are already laughing at the question.]

HK: Although I will add there is one boss fight in a Western game that he [Jean Pierre Kellams] and I both love to death. The end of Modern Warfare is an amazing boss fight! When Price tosses a pistol and Soap picks it up. It’s so good!

(Kamiya jumps up and mimes the whole sequence.)

GC: [laughs] So you’re looking forwards to the remastered version I take it?

HK: I didn’t actually play Modern Warfare, I just watched everybody else play it and loved it to death.

All: [laughs]

JPK: I love it so much. When that happened in the studio, when we were all playing it together, everybody started cheering like it was the greatest thing! [laughs]

HK: But to kind of shift gears a little bit, I can’t really talk down to Western games at all. I really think they’re kind of setting the pillars for the quality of this generation. Every time I come to E3 I kind of look around and it’s like, ‘Wow, those games are really good!’ But this year in particular, the general level of quality of the games and the gap between what the West is doing and what Japan is doing is enormous. And it really left an impression on me.

GC: What in particular caught your eye?

HK: Specifically, Horizon looks amazing. Forza Horizon 3 is great, I’m a huge fan of that. And Days Gone looks really cool too. And I’m really looking forward to seeing God Of War, just from an action game perspective.

GC: My earlier point wasn’t to disparage Western games in any way. I agree this E3 has been particularly good, and to me that only makes the blind spot around boss battles all the stranger.

HK: I see where you’re going, the standard level of quality is awesome but you don’t get the spike on the boss fight – like you do in a Japanese game. But those games are so good…

Scalebound – that’s a big boss

GC: I often wonder whether Western developers put them in games for any reason other than tradition.

JPK: I think in a Japanese game a boss fight becomes this huge explosion of just crazy. Like you, have this roller coaster that you’re going up and down of the different things that happen, and the you hit a loop. You’re in a corkscrew. The boss fight always does something to twist you.

Whereas Western game boss fights are more about not wanting to break immersion. And so they keep that going all the way across, and occasionally they can do something really cool but it’s always got to be in the context of the immersion of the game, and they’re not super ready to kind of twist somebody.

But when you look at our E3 thing, we kind of try to frame the fact that we’re twisting you. So Drew walks up and he says, ‘Wonderful!’ And you’re like, ‘Well, why is he saying wonderful?’ And then the camera pulls back and you realise that this thing is 80 bazillion times bigger than anything you’ve seen before in the game. And that’s the corkscrew, right?

But they [Western developers] wouldn’t want to do that because how does this 80 bazillion times bigger thing get in this cave? Where does this scorpion live? When he runs is there some place that he’s running to?

GC: I’ve noticed that not playing Western games is actually quite common amongst Japanese developers. Whereas generally speaking Western developers always seem keen to play as many different games as possible.

(Before Kamiya’s response is translated there’s again a lot of laughing from the others in the room, that can also speak Japanese.)

HK: Just so there’s no misunderstanding, that’s changed a lot really recently. At work, tons of people are constantly referencing Western games. Lots of people are playing Western games now and I think that it’s very much different from people using that as a stock response. I want to make sure that you don’t misunderstand: it’s not just that I don’t play Western games, I don’t play modern Japanese games either! For fun I play classic games…

GC: Well, we wouldn’t want you to pick up any bad habits.

All: [laughs]

HK: But I actually feel bad looking at E3 this year. It’s like, ‘Oh my god, I need to start playing this stuff!’ It’s time for me to get behind this!

JPK: [to Kamiya] Really, you’re actually gonna play modern games?

HK: I’ll play that! [points to Forza Horizon 3 display on the television in the room]

JPK: [laughs] I got him hooked on Forza Horizon 2.

HK: I’m pre-ordering that.

GC: I’m sure they’ll give you a free copy if you ask.

(Kamiya suddenly seems to get very excited at the prospect of free stuff.)

Microsoft PR woman: [laughs] This is when he turns into a little kid!

Scalebound – one game Kamiya has played (but we haven’t)

GC: Last time we spoke you said you were going to talk to Takeuchi-san at Capcom. I wonder whether you actually did meet up with him in the end?

Platinum PR woman: Yeah! That’s where we left off.

JPK: Was this about Resident Evil 2?

GC: Nobody knows what it’s about!

HK: That conversation happened. I go drinking with Takeuchi quite a bit. And every time we go drink he’s like, ‘Let’s do something, man! Let’s do something, man!’ And I continue to say, ‘Let’s do something, man! Let’s do something!’

(More laughter from everyone present.)

Platinum PR woman: [laughs] Stop it!

GC: Well, do have another one on me next time you see him!

HK: [laughs – but then moves his jacket to point at the T-shirt he’s wearing, which we hadn’t noticed features a wolf. Albeit it one drawn in a Western style, and not at all similar to Amaterasu from Okami.]

JPK: I think he’s trying to steal Phil’s gimmick, by wearing T-shirts! [Xbox boss Phil Spencer is notorious for wearing T-shirts, at major events, that hint at future, unannounced games.]

HK: I am stealing Phil’s gimmick.

GC: Wow. Well, it’s been great to talk to you again. It really has. I look forward to playing all your future games.

JPK: Always a pleasure.

(After the interview we continue chatting and mention that we’re going to see NieR: Automata later, which Platinum are also working on – although Kamiya himself is not involved.)

GC: That seems like a great idea to me, because the problem with the first NieR was always the combat – but you can help fix that. It reminds me of when Deus Ex outsourced the boss battles to another company.

JPK: I did not know that.

GC: Yeah, but it was some terrible no-name company that made a real hash of it. And I remember saying at the time, why didn’t they just phone Platinum or Treasure? Is that something you’d like to encourage in the future?

HK: Instead of just taking boss fights, we’d prefer to take the whole thing!

GC: [laughs] That’s understandable. And just finally, what about the response to Star Fox Zero? That got much more mixed reviews than I expected.

HK: Honestly, I haven’t played it. I’ve been so busy with Scalebound!

GC: [laughs] You don’t even play your own games?!

All: [laughs]

HK: To be honest, even when I was at Capcom I didn’t really play the other Capcom games.

All: [laughs]

GC: Okay, oh boy! Well, thanks again. It’s been great to see you all again.

JPK: Thank you!

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