David Jaumandreu and I are imagined to be having our interview about his upcoming sport, Denshattack, in a studio constructed out to appear like a prepare. And we’ll, ultimately, as you’ll see from the video above. However earlier than we shoot the video model, we chat for my written piece in a really completely different setting: a dungeon.
Jaumandreu is sitting on an inexplicable throne, such as you’d discover in a king’s palace, whereas I sit atop a special form of throne: an precise bathroom. There are pretend shackles in opposition to the stone partitions round us, and bars on the window. Behind us, by means of a sliding door, is the prepare studio we’ll be utilizing in half-hour.
I don’t have a intelligent option to transition Jaumandreu and my dungeon journey into one thing about Denshattack!, and even trains. However Jaumandreu is effusive in regards to the foolish setting we’re in. He has each purpose to be pleased proper now: he’s in his favourite place on this planet, in any case.
No, I don’t imply the dungeon. I’m speaking about Japan.
Jaumandreu has traveled midway around the globe to advertise his upcoming sport: Denshattack!, which he describes as “Tony Hawk with Japanese trains.” He’s main its improvement because the studio director of Undercoders, which was based in 2005 in Barcelona. It started as a cell improvement studio and ultimately transitioned to DSi improvement and later to console with video games like Conga Grasp and Treasures of the Aegean. The core group is simply 12 folks, even a whopping 20 years after its founding, although Jaumandreu says they do work with exterior builders on issues comparable to music and animation when help is required.
So what’s a Barcelonan studio doing making a sport that’s hyperspecifically targeted on Japanese trains? Put merely, Jaumandreu loves Japan, and he loves the prepare system there. That’s the lengthy and wanting it.
“I got here [to Japan] in ’98 for the primary time,” he tells me, talking from the throne. “I got here simply for tourism. My father used to journey rather a lot for work, so I had the chance to observe him on considered one of his journeys right here, and it captivated me a lot that I simply needed to come back again repeatedly and once more.”
Jaumandreu was 16 on that first journey – he’s just a few many years older now, and has been again to Japan nearly yearly since that first journey.
“There’s a lot to love,” he continues. “After I got here right here, it was clearly as a result of I used to be a child. I beloved Dragon Ball, I beloved video video games, you recognize? And again then, Japan was the largest drive in making video video games. Nintendo, PlayStation, no matter. However I got here by means of this fascination, after which obtained fascinated by the nation itself. Its historical past, it is tremendous attention-grabbing, its tradition. Everytime you get to comprehend it extra, there are extra layers of attention-grabbing stuff to get. The cinema is incredible, the meals is unbelievable. Popular culture. No, it is a mixture of numerous issues, and everytime you get deeper into the nation, you discover extra attention-grabbing stuff. So in fact the primary time I obtained right here was Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Then you definitely begin exploring extra the agricultural facet, and that is what it began to get to me.”
After all, Jaumandreu particularly loves Japan’s prepare system. He rode the subway on his first go to, the Yamanote line that runs in a circle by means of Tokyo’s largest areas. On the time, trains in Japan didn’t have any English voices on the intercom or English phrases on the indicators, so all he needed to go on was his guidebook for navigation. “It felt like an enormous journey.” Particularly, he says, in comparison with trains in Barcelona, which have been good however not almost as superior technologically. “To place it in perspective, again once I got here right here, the distinction was it was like wanting 20 years sooner or later, and now we have type of reached that time, I assume.”
Then, Jaumandreu obtained to experience the Shinkansen, the bullet prepare, and he was blown away. “It is extremely quick and silent on the identical time, so it feels tremendous calm, and you are going so quick. It feels, I do not know, discontextualized. The unbelievable velocity that you are going, and it does not transfer or shake or no matter. It is a tremendous clean experience. It is tremendous snug.”
It was out of this love that Denshattack! Was born. At some point, Jaumandreu says, he was taking part in with somewhat toy prepare he had, and the concepts started to circulation.
“I used to be, you recognize, finger skating with a prepare. Such as you’re bored. And I used to be doing this and that. I used to be like, ‘Whoa, that is cool. We might make a sport out of this.’ I began fascinated with it and giving numerous thought to how that may translate into gameplay. And I used to skate, and I’m massive fan of the Tony Hawk video games particularly, and it was like, ‘How would you do that? How would you management this?’ So yeah, I introduced a prepare piece to work, began displaying the group some strikes, after which I introduced to the remainder of the group they usually informed me, ‘They’re shit.’ ‘Are you loopy?’ After which [my coworker] who’s tremendous quick in Unreal, I believe he spent couple of days with that and he got here out and mentioned, ‘There’s positively a sport right here. It is tremendous enjoyable.’”
Denshattack! has been in improvement now for three years. It’s visually impressed by Jet Set Radio, Hello-Fi Rush, and Persona, and set to music by Sonic Mania’s Tee Lopes. In it, you management a prepare as in case you have been controlling a skateboard, the place the panorama, cities, and different landmarks turn into a skate park. Jaumandreu describes gameplay in two components: there’s a “circulation state” gameplay the place you’re targeted on getting from level A to B, doing methods and avoiding derailing as you go. After which there are missions the place you’ll race rivals, attempt to get a excessive rating from doing methods, and even struggle bosses like big mechs. And Denshattack! combines all this with a Shonen anime story about discovered household, insurrection, and making mates along with your rivals.
As we wrap up our interview and put together to maneuver out of the dungeon and into the prepare studio to report, I ask Jaumandreu one final, important query. What’s his favourite ekiben, or prepare bento field?
He begins to say his favourite is those that self-heat if you pull somewhat tab out. However then he brings up an much more apropos reply: he likes the child’s meals, as a result of they arrive in a field formed like a prepare.
Denshattack! is deliberate for launch in spring 2026 for PC, Xbox Sequence (together with on Sport Move), and PlayStation.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Received a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.