Iijima Confirms ONI Zero: Resurrection Production Alongside ONI Zero X
Iijima frames the re-release push and the AI talk around the same economics: new titles are hard to recoup, so old ones and cheaper production carry the company.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
In a mini interview at the National Entertainment Festival in Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, game creator Takuya Iijima said ONI Zero: Resurrection will be produced while ONI Zero X remains in the works. Iijima also addressed the re-release response to The Story of the Scary Stories That Happened at School and Tsuki-Komori, the shelved Ninja Taisen concept, and his interest in generative AI.
Iijima roots the ONI series in darker material than the consumer versions showed. The series collection carries a newly written origin project called Zanchichou, and he described the original pitch as a messier story built around a protagonist who keeps questioning his own role, written from a PC game background that included Nukushin Densetsu and Last Armageddon.
He said Bumprest and Bandai, both toy makers, wanted brighter stories of good triumphing over evil for children, so the early concept changed. The re-releases have their own argument: the original The Story of the Scary Stories That Happened at School cost close to 10,000 yen a copy, and secondhand prices now run far higher, which he said is part of why the cheaper reissues find buyers.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.