Masashi Hamauzu is a Japanese composer, pianist, and lyricist. Hamauzu, who was employed at Square Enix from 1996 to 2010, was best known during that time for his work on the Final Fantasy and SaGa video game series. Born into a musical family in Germany, Hamauzu was raised in Japan. He became interested in music while in kindergarten, and took piano lessons from his parents.
Arc System Works Co., Ltd., commonly referred to as ArcSys, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher located in Yokohama. Founded by Minoru Kidooka in 1988, the company is known for arcade 2D fighting game franchises, including Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, as well as other license-based fighting games for Dragon Ball FighterZ, Persona 4 Arena (Ultimax), Granblue Fantasy Versus (Rising), and others.
Love-de-Lic, Inc., stylised as LOVE•de•LIC, was a Japanese video game developer founded by Kenichi Nishi in 1995. The staff was composed primarily of former Square employees. The company folded in 2000, and many of its employees went on to establish other game companies, including skip Ltd., Vanpool, and Punchline.
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is an action-adventure video game developed by Finnish studio Cornfox & Bros. It focuses on an unnamed boy protagonist's quest to find his lost father and defeat the living fortress, Oceanhorn. It was first released for iOS in November 2013, and later had ports for Android, Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Vita.
Terra Battle was a role-playing video game developed by Hawaii-based studio Mistwalker. It was released for iOS and Android devices on October 9, 2014. It was produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, with music by Nobuo Uematsu of the same series. The game also featured artwork by Kimihiko Fujisaka, who has contributed to works such as The Last Story and Drakengard. Service for Terra Battle was discontinued in June 2020.
Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game development and localization company specializing in role-playing video games, visual novels and adventure games. The company was founded in 1984 as Chunsoft Co., Ltd. and merged with Spike in 2012. It is owned by Dwango.
In the video game industry during 2019, both Sony and Microsoft announced their intent to reveal their next-generation consoles in 2020, while Nintendo introduced a smaller Nintendo Switch Lite, and Google announced its streaming game platform Stadia. The controversy over loot boxes as a potential gambling route continued into 2019, with some governments like Belgium and the Netherlands banning games with them under their gambling laws, while the United Kingdom acknowledging their current laws prevent enforcing these as if they were games of chance. The first video cards to support real-time ray tracing were put onto the consumer market, including the first set of games that would take advantage of the new technology. The Epic Games Store continued its growth in challenging the largest digital PC game distribution service Steam, leading to concern and debate about Epic Games' methods to seek games for its service. Dota Auto Chess, a community-created mod for Dota 2, introduced a new subgenre of strategy games called auto battlers, which saw several games in the genre released throughout the year. Blizzard Entertainment faced criticism due to their involvement in the Blitzchung controversy, which began after they had banned a Hearthstone player for making comments during a tournament regarding the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
Kevin Penkin is a British-born Australian composer, primarily for video games and anime. He is best known for composing the score of the anime Made in Abyss, which won Best Score at the 2nd Crunchyroll Anime Awards, and the score for the Tower of God anime adaptation, which won Best Score at the 5th Crunchyroll Anime Awards.
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is an upcoming sports role-playing video game by Level-5, planned for release for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Windows, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS in June 2025.
Bleach: Brave Souls is a free-to-play gacha mobile game developed and published by KLabGames. Set in the Bleach universe, it was released for Android and iOS in Japan in July 2015 and worldwide in January 2016. It was released for Microsoft Windows in August 2020 and for PlayStation 4 in March 2022. The game amassed 80 million downloads by August 2023. A version for Xbox One was released in June 2024. The game was also released for Nintendo Switch in July 2024.
In the video game industry, 2021 saw the release of many new titles. The numerous delays in software and hardware releases due to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted development schedules, leading to several games being delayed into 2022 or even postponed indefinitely. Additionally, computer and console hardware were impacted by the combined effects of a semiconductor shortage and a rising growth of bitcoin mining that strained the supply of critical components.
In the video game industry, 2022 saw the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry, slowing hardware sales for most of the year as well as development delays for major titles. The industry continued its trend of acquisitions and mergers, highlighted by Microsoft announcing its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. The industry as a whole continued to deal with issues such as workplace harassment and discrimination, alongside crunch periods, leading to at least the quality assurance staff at three separate studios to vote to unionize.
In the video game industry, 2023 saw significant changes within larger publishers and developers. Microsoft, after having satisfied worldwide regulatory bodies, completed its US$69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, making them the third largest game publisher in the world. Embracer Group, which had been in an acquisition spree over the previous few years, had an estimated $2 billion deal fall through, causing many of the studios under Embracer to either lay off staff or close entirely. Similar layoffs were seen at Unity, Amazon, ByteDance, Epic Games, Bungie, and Ubisoft, leading to over 9,000 jobs lost in the industry in 2023 and part of a larger trend of layoffs at technology companies in 2023.
In the video game industry, 2024 saw job losses that continued from 2023, including large cuts from Microsoft Gaming, Electronic Arts, and Sony Interactive Entertainment, with 14,600 jobs cut through the entire year.
In the video game industry, 2025 is expected to see the release of many new video games.
Plug In Digital is a French video game publisher and distributor. They were founded in 2012 and established two subsidiaries since then: Dear Villagers, who publish mid-market games for personal computers and consoles, and PID Games, who publish games of all varieties.
Mon-Yu is the shortened title of a first-person dungeon crawler video game developed by Tokyo-based studio Experience, Inc. and published by Aksys Games in the West. It was released in 2023 for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Windows. Its isekai-based story revolves around warriors from other worlds who are summoned to the land of Tir Na Balc in order to defeat the evil Devil King. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who noted that besides its unusually long name, it was otherwise fairly generic. Decrying its lack of depth, basic story and standard fantasy setting, reviewers called the game likely targeting and best suited for beginners to the genre.
