‘It’s not perfect, but it’s honest’: Why a Rez and Lumines artist quit their company to pursue a dream game

You might not guess from his modest, friendly persona, but artist Noboru Hotta has worked on some of Japan’s most creative and memorable console games of the past two decades, like Rez, Lumines, and Meteos.

Until recently, he was also the co-founder of a game studio comprised of more than 100 people. And then one day, he gave it all up to pursue his dream project.

Hotta’s lineage stretches back to Sega’s beloved UGA studio, where he was a key director. After the studio was wound up in the wake of Sega leaving the console business, he then followed UGA’s lineage to Q Entertainment, and most recently, Grounding Inc, the studio he co-founded more than a decade ago, which worked on games such as Crimson Dragon and Space Channel 5 VR.

Hotta’s former staff, or ‘kōhai’, speak warmly about a man they say has a generous character and who deeply influenced the art direction of the projects he worked on. In the 90s, Hotta was famous in the UGA office for frequently donating blood – he even described it as a hobby – and being registered with various medical donation initiatives.

There’s no way he could’ve known, however, that more than 20 years later this generous spirit would save his own life, when a medical emergency required him to have his own serious transplant. Understandably, the ordeal caused something of an existential crisis for Hotta, who soon decided to quit the company he co-founded to pursue a small personal project he’d long dreamed of making.

“The idea came to me ten years ago,” Hotta told VGC at his small studio in Shibuya, Japan, minutes away from the old UGA building where he started. “During this time, a lot of things happened in my life, and at the same time, I was running my own company, Grounding, which required a lot of attention away from working on my own games.

“That’s why I eventually decided to quit my company. I started Grounding with just three people, including myself, Yukio Futatusugi (Panzer Dragoon), and Mineko Okamura (Space Channel 5), and we grew to over 100 employees. When we started, we had so many ambitions and ideas, but once the company got bigger, it became more difficult to pursue them all.”

At first glance, Twin Soul, which Hotta has created with a team of just five people, may seem like a simple homage to the rhythm action games he built his career on. Players control a fighter who rides on the back of a giant beast in a familiar on-rails setup. As enemies approach, you can either perform melee attacks on closer ones or use ranged attacks on those in the distance, by holding down a fire button to target multiple enemies at once, similar to the music masterpiece, Rez.

You can try Twin Soul for yourself via the recently released Steam demo.

Hotta says Twin Soul’s similarity to his previous games, especially how the projectiles seem to merge with the soundtrack, came naturally – “those games are my identity,” he said. But beneath the surface, there’s evidence of a deeply personal connection to his career.

“That’s why I eventually decided to quit my company… we had so many ambitions and ideas, but once the company got bigger, it became more difficult to pursue them all.”

The game’s visual style, for a start, is based on the Japanese woodblock art form of Ukiyo-e, which is where Hotta first learned his craft, working at a traditional art studio. This style also gave him an outlet to tell a story about Japanese mythology, which he says felt more true to his identity as a Japanese, after decades of perfecting Western art styles.

“During my career, my art has been inspired by Western culture,” he said. “But no matter how hard I work on creating Western-style art, in my heart and soul, I’m still Japanese. For this, I thought that, as a Japanese person who was born and raised here, maybe I can create something that can tell people about the ancient mythology of my country.”

Predictably, given Hotta’s pedigree, Twin Soul is a striking-looking game with simple controls and rhythmic action that soon becomes engrossing. As our hero rides across the landscape, transitioning from showy scene to showy scene, we can’t help but be reminded of another game, Annapurna’s excellent Sayonara Wild Hearts. For Hotta, it’s a big compliment, if a slightly sore subject.

“When I first saw Sayonara Wild Hearts, I was so shocked – in a negative way,” he laughs. “Because that’s exactly the type of game I was dreaming of making. When I first saw the trailer for that game, I was begging that it was a movie. But it was a game! I was so jealous they made it first. But they did an amazing job.”

Hotta hopes to release Twin Soul sometime next year and claims that what we’ve seen so far in demos is much simpler than what he has planned for the full experience.

“The actual game design is deeper and more complicated. Actually, the reason the game is called Twin Souls is that, eventually, you will be able to experience the story from two different perspectives, and understand what it feels like to be on different sides, to be a ‘twin soul’.

“This game is full of my love, full of my feelings. It’s not perfect, but it’s honest.”