Shutaro Ida has handed away aged 52 after a one-and-a-half 12 months battle towards pancreatic most cancers. The information was introduced by his household through a press release on Ida’s official X account on February 15. Longtime colleague Koji Igarashi has vowed to end the designer and director’s upcoming metroidvania Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement, the sequel to 2019’s Castlevania-infused Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night time.
Shutaro Ida (typically romanized as Shutaro Iida) labored at Konami from 1996 to 2015, primarily as a programmer. His largest contribution was to the Castlevania collection. Beginning with the GBA title Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and PS2 recreation Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Ida performed a key function in bringing the gothic motion video games into the sixth and seventh console generations, even directing Castlevania: Concord of Despair on Xbox 360 and PS3. He was additionally a lead programmer on Metallic Gear Stable V: Floor Zeroes and The Phantom Ache.
Upon the invitation of former Castlevania collection producer Koji “Iga” Igarashi, Ida joined ArtPlay, the indie dev firm Igarashi co-founded. There, Ida designed and directed the crowdfunded recreation Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night time, with Igarashi as producer. The recreation was well-received, and broadly seen as a non secular successor to the Castlevania collection. In our evaluate, we gave it 8.8, noting it “performs and feels nearly precisely just like the legendary Castlevania: Symphony of the Night time.”
Reflecting upon 20 years of creating video games with Ida, Igarashi famous in his tribute: “I’ve been working with him ever since Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. It’s not an exaggeration to say that many video games hailed as masterpieces wouldn’t have succeeded with out his contributions. His expertise was distinctive.”
“I really feel that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night time’s success was additionally in a big half down to his unimaginable help,” Igarashi continued. “Wanting again, he’s been supporting me for over 20 years. He was the sort of one that at all times thought of video games, tackling recreation improvement like he was burning his life away. I hope he can relaxation peacefully now as he was at all times operating at full throttle.”
Ida’s last recreation, Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement remains to be in improvement and is due out later this 12 months. Igarashi described it as a useful work that Ida poured himself into. “We are going to tackle his aspirations for the sport and see that it’s correctly accomplished, in order not to disappoint him.”
Ida final tweeted again on January 30, saying that he felt the tip was close to as he was getting weaker every day. He completed with a easy request: “Please love Bloodstained 2 and all of the video games I made.”
The statement from Ida’s household echoed this sentiment: “Shutaro’s adventures on this world have come to an finish, however his creations stay. We’d be completely happy if individuals might proceed to benefit from the video games he made.”
Picture credit score: Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement YouTube channel.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance author who beforehand served as editor, contributor and translator for the sport information web site Automaton West. She has additionally written about Japanese tradition and films for numerous publications.