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Akihiro Hino, in an interview with 4Gamer, stated that 2025 will be a year of progress for Level-5. This means a worldwide release of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

In his comment, Hino states that all three titles are chock-full of what makes Level-5 games “Level-5,” while still providing new experiences for the player. He hopes to create works that’ll make people say, “I was waiting for something like this.” As well, Hino mentions the Inazuma Eleven movie that came out in Japan on December 27, 2024. Part of the movie is a compilation of the Football Frontier matches (season 1), while the other one is The Prologue to New Heroes which focuses on new protagonists Unmei and Haru.

While Level-5 announced Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam rather recently, Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road has been in development since 2016. Back then, it was supposed to be Inazuma Eleven Ares, and the Ares no Tenbin show started airing in 2018 to tie into it. After several delays and name changes, a beta version finally came out in 2024.

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road will come out in 2025 for the PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, and mobile devices. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time will come out in April 2025 for the Nintendo Switch. Finally, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam will come out for the Switch in 2025.

The post Akihito Hino Said Level-5 Will Release New Games in 2025 appeared first on Siliconera.

CESA has announced the winners of Japan Game Awards 2024's Future Division award winners on the final day of Tokyo Game Show 2024. Square Enix's Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake and Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds are among the titles that received this award.

The TGS 2024 organizers held a public poll on the event's first three days on September 26-28, 2024, to determine the winners of this award from among the titles exhibited at the event. A total of ten games won the Future Division award in the 2024 edition.

Here is the full list of the ten Japan Game Awards 2024 Future Division award winners based on the presentation's chronological order:

1. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake
   Square Enix will publish the remake of one of the most popular games in Japan for the Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC simultaneously worldwide on November 14, 2024.
2. Dynasty Warriors Origins
   Koei Tecmo will release the new Dynasty Warriors tactical action game for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on January 17, 2025.
3. Metaphor: ReFantazio
   Atlus will publish the new fantasy RPG made by the creators of Persona 3, 4, and 5 on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PS4, and PC on October 11, 2024. This is the second time the game received a Future Division award, as Atlus also exhibited it in the 2023 edition.
4. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven
   Square Enix will release the remake of the Super Famicom (SNES) title Romancing SaGa 2 for the PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC on October 24, 2024.
5. Arknights: Endfield
   Hypergryph will release the real-time strategy RPG spin-off of Arknights for iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as PC and PlayStation 5. This Chinese game is also the only completely non-Japanese title to win the Future Division award in the 2024 edition.
6. Persona 5: The Phantom X
   Atlus and Sega will bring Perfect World's Persona 5-themed PC and mobile free-to-play game that appeared first in China to Japan. The company group is also considering a global English release of the title.
7. Suikoden I&II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars
   Konami will release the remaster compilation of the first two Suikoden RPGs on PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC on March 6, 2025.
8. Monster Hunter Wilds
   Capcom will publish the new mainline Monster Hunter entry on the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC simultaneously worldwide on February 28, 2025.
9. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
   Sega will bring the Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth side story starring Goro Majima to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC on February 28, 2025.
10. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam
    Level-5 will release the new entry in the Professor Layton puzzle game series for Nintendo Switch simultaneously worldwide in 2025.

The post TGS 2024 Future Division Award Winners Include DQ3, MH Wilds appeared first on Siliconera.

Level-5 has published a new trailer for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam at the Level-5 Vision 2024 program. People can check out the general gist of the game, which is slated for release on the Switch in 2025.

The 2025 release window is still unchanged from the previous gameplay video that appeared in the second Level-5 Vision 2023 program. While Level-5 used direct gameplay footage from the game's point-and-click and puzzle segments in the previous video, this new trailer features a combination of gameplay and event cutscenes that tell a larger picture of the whole game.

The game's story will take place in an American town named Steam Bison. Puzzles will play a very important part in this game, as clearing them will let the player advance the story while seeing the town develop further. Level-5 also teased that the New World of Steam will have the highest number of puzzles in the game series' history.

Level-5 has also ed a standalone version of the new trailer for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam on its YouTube channel:

Level-5 will release Professor Layton and the New World of Steam on Nintendo Switch simultaneously worldwide in 2025. The company will also place demo builds of the game with Japanese and English language options at the Tokyo Game Show 2024.

The post See Professor Layton and the New World of Steam New Trailer appeared first on Siliconera.

Level-5 has updated its website to include information on the Tokyo Game Show 2024 (TGS 2024), where it will have demos and trailers of its games. You’ll be able to check out Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, Fantasy life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, and Decapolice.

Of the above games, Decapolice will be the only one that won’t be playable. Level-5 will only show a video showcase of it. All of the other games will have playable demos and live broadcasts. If you visit the booth, you can get clear files while supplies last. As well, different games will award different rewards. Playing the Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road demo can net you a fan of the Raimon uniform. Meanwhile, playing Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time can get you an original bandana. The design for the bandana will come out at a later date. Finally, playing through Professor Layton and the New World of Steam can get you a coin keyring.

You can find the Level-5 map in Hall 5. As a reminder, the Tokyo Game Show will take place from September 26 to September 29, 2024 at the Makuhari Messe. The first two days are for the press and those in the gaming industry. Then, the last two days are for the public. The live broadcasts will start from September 26, 2024 though. So even if the public can’t access Makuhari Messe for the event, you’ll be able to check out what new offerings Level-5 has in store.

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is in development for the PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, and mobile devices. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is in development for the Nintendo Switch, as is Professor Layton and the New World of Steam.

The post Level-5 Announced Its New TGS 2024 Games appeared first on Siliconera.

During the latest Level-5 Vision 2023 II event, Level-5 announced that Professor Layton and the New World of Steam has a 2025 release date window. The company also shared the first gameplay footage of the game.

The trailer showed Professor Layton and Luke solving Puzzle 017, which is titled "The Enigmatic Entrance." Since the original six Professor Layton games appeared on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS, the new gameplay footage showed a redesigned UI used during puzzles that better adapts to the single-screen format of the Nintendo Switch.

You can watch now the first Professor Layton and the New World of Steam gameplay trailer here:

The new Professor Layton and the New World of Steam gameplay footage included a voiceover explanation of the rules of the puzzle, voiced by Yo Oizumi and Mio Imada, the voice actors of Professor Layton and Luke respectively. The rules are accessible at all times on the left side of the screen for players to review.

Other gameplay prompts for hints and a notepad function appear underneath the rules. The new gameplay footage showed Layton and Luke taking advantage of the notepad to solve the puzzle.

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is currently in development for the Nintendo Switch, and has a global simultaneous 2025 release date window.

The post Professor Layton and the New World of Steam 2025 Release Window, Gameplay Shared appeared first on Siliconera.

It was announced on the Professor Layton social media that further details about Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, the next entry in the series, will be revealed during the LEVEL5 VISION 2023 II livestream on November 29, 2023 at 9pm JST (7am ET/4am PT). Additionally, other new Level-5 games and their release dates will be shown.

Until now, we haven’t been told anything about when we can expect to see Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. The product listing only stated the launch was "to be determined."

The new Level-5 video games that will appear at the event and may be assigned release dates during the livestream will be the following:

• Decapolice
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Megaton Musashi W: Wired
• Professor Layton and the New World of Steam

Earlier this November 2023, Level-5 delayed Fantasy Life i to 2024.

The LEVEL5 VISION 2023 II livestream will begin on the official Level-5 YouTube channel on November 29, 2023. English and traditional Chinese subtitles will also be available on the livestream. Prior to this event, many of the titles had tentative 2023 and 2024 launch windows, but no specific release dates.

The post Level-5 New Games Release Dates Will Be Revealed Soon appeared first on Siliconera.

Level-5 President Akihiro Hino announced that the next Level-5 Vision 2023 II event will be held on November 29, 2023. During the event, the company will reveal more details and information about several games that will be shown, including release dates.

Furthermore, Level-5 confirmed that Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time will be delayed to 2024. The new release date will be announced during the event. The original release window for the game was set to 2023. However, information about the game during 2023 has been sparse until its Tokyo Game Show 2023 appearance.

The first Level-5 Vision 2023 (Tsuzumi) event was held on March 9, 2023, where the company offered a look and gave new information about several of their titles. These titles are Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time,Decapolice, Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, and Megaton Musashi Wired. These games will once again be featured in the newly announced event.

Additionally, Akihiro Hino talked in the past about Level-5’s titles, and said that the company’s future goal is to aim for a worldwide simultaneous release of its titles.

The next Level-5 Vision 2023 II event will be held on November 29, 2023. More information will appear at a later date.

The post New Level-5 Vision 2023 Event Announced, Fantasy Life i Delay Confirmed appeared first on Siliconera.

Level-5 will return to Tokyo Game Show 2023 with a larger roster of titles. The company has published a new webpage detailing its appearance at the event. The Level-5 TGS 2023 webpage is also available in English in addition to the original Japanese.

The company will set up a physical booth between Halls 7-8 at Makuhari Messe. It will feature playable demos of Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, Decapolice, and Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time.

Level-5 will also stream a live broadcast on Thursday, September 21, 2023, at 9 PM JST / 1 PM BST / 8 AM ET / 5 AM ET. The stream will contain new information on Megaton Musashi: Wired and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam in addition to the above three games.

Everyone who visits the physical Level-5 booth at TGS 2023 will receive a pamphlet containing a catalog of titles that the company has released over the past 25 years, ever since Akihiro Hino established it in 1998. Each of the demos in the booth will also have a set of free badges for those who have played them.

The Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road demos will come with additional Snack World and Little Battlers eXperience badges. Likewise, staff on the Decapolice demos will hand out Professor Layton and Megaton Musashi badges. Finally, the Fantasy Life i demo will also reward Yo-kai Watch and Ni no Kuni badges.

[caption id="attachment_982149" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Level-5[/caption]

Tokyo Game Show 2023 will take place in Japan on September 21-24, 2023.

The post Level-5 TGS 2023 Booth Will Feature Inazuma Eleven and Decapolice appeared first on Siliconera.

In an interview with Famitsu, President and CEO of Level-5 Akihiro Hino offered some new details about games announced at the Level-5 Vision 2023 (Tsuzumi) event. Hino also said that Level-5's objective for the future is to aim for simultaneous worldwide releases of its games, something that it intends to achieve gradually. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Regarding Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Keiji Inafune will act as the producer of the game. Two new jobs will be included in the game, but no further details were given about them. However, Hino confirmed that these two unknown jobs are not Farmer and Postman, which were created exclusively for Fantasy Life Online. Characters from the original Fantasy Life and Fantasy Life Online will make appear the new entry.

Hino said that the development team for Decapolice has been working on the game for about three years. The concept behind the game was to create an RPG with a mystery plot as engaging as those in Professor Layton. The game was originally going to be marketed as “the next game from the creators of Professor Layton,” and as a spiritual successor. But since the announcement of Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, the developers at Level-5 decided that they could no longer do that.

An important part of combat in Decapolice revolves around negotiating with criminals. Since the game is not a traditional RPG where you fight monsters, engaging with enemies in order to convince them to give up will play an important part. If negotiation fails, regular combat will play as usual, and the criminals will be arrested upon winning.

When talking about Megaton Musashi Wired, Hino stated that the inclusion of two different frame types for the mechs will be a new feature of the game. These will be the classic Gorilla type, and the brand new Slim type. This was made to accommodate for the new crossover mechs that will appear in the game.

Level-5 recently announced during their latest Level-5 Vision five new titles in the making. These are Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Megaton Musashi Wired, and the detective mystery-RPG hybrid Decapolice. All five games are being developed for the Nintendo Switch. Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road will also launch on PS4.

The post Level-5 President Talks About Games appeared first on Siliconera.

The existence of a new Professor Layton game was revealed at last month's Nintendo Direct, but details on the project were scarce. Level-5 has rectified that by dropping new info at its 2023 Vision livestream event. A presentation and gameplay preview of Professor Layton and the New World of Steam revealed more about the game's setting, story, and anticipated mechanics.

The livestream built off the brief Professor Layton and the New World of Steam teaser from February 2023. The story takes place a year after Layton and his apprentice Luke parted ways. Luke has since moved to America, and invited Layton to visit him in the city of Steam Bison, where advanced steam-powered machines are at the forefront of technology. There Layton and Luke's roles are reversed somewhat. Though an authority on riddles in his native London, he's pretty much unknown in America. By contrast, Luke is a rising star, the famous "Detective Luke". The pair will reunite in a new and unfamiliar place, solving puzzles together and seeing Steam Bison grow and change over time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9IM9gWjZn4

Level-5 revealed that the Japanese voice roles for Layton and Luke have been retained. Layton will be played by Yo Oizumi, who also played Turnip Head in Howl's Moving Castle. Luke will be played by Mio Imada, who played Kiruka Hasaki in the My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising feature film. The game's puzzles were designed by QuizKnock, a group of entertainers based in the University of Tokyo who specialize in creating quizzes, puzzles, and other brain-teasers.

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is in development for the Nintendo Switch. It doesn't have a release window as of yet, but will be released globally.

The post Professor Layton and the New World of Steam Takes Place in America appeared first on Siliconera.

Publisher/Developer Level-5 delivered a number of new project announcements this year, and its next big event will have more information about them. The Level-5 Vision 2023 livestream event is scheduled for early March 2023. It'll stream on March 9, 2023 at 3am PT/6am ET/8pm JST, via Level-5's official YouTube channel. Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam will be among the games appearing.

Though the company hasn't detailed exactly what it plans to reveal, the event will feature new details about recently announced games like Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, and Deca Police. All three games were announced during the February 8, 2023 Nintendo Direct broadcast. Additionally, the Level-5 Vision 2023 event will bring more info on the previously announced Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road and Megaton Musashi Wired. 

Of the featured games in Level-5's event docket, two notable pieces of info can be gleaned. First is that Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is the official English title for the game. The Japanese title translates to Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road of Heroes. This suggests that Level-5 intends an international release for the game.

A second new bit of info is the existence of Megaton Musashi Wired (or Megaton Musashi W). The game appears to be a new entry in the series (or perhaps an updated release), and includes an English-formatted logo and design. As with Inazuma Eleven, the changes suggest international release plans. At the moment the Megaton Musashi franchise, both its anime series and the Megaton Musashi X game, are Japan-exclusive.

The Level-5 Vision 2023 streaming event launches on March 9, 2023 at 3am PT/6am ET/8pm JST on YouTube.

The post Level-5 Vision 2023 Event Shows Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven appeared first on Siliconera.

A new Professor Layton Switch title was announced at Nintendo's latest Direct broadcast. Its formal title is Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. It doesn't have a release window yet, but Nintendo did reveal a pre-rendered teaser trailer and logo.

Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr50WwktW6E

The trailer is light on details but shows the iconic mystery-solving Professor Layton walking through a steampunk metropolis.

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam will be the first main series Professor Layton Switch title. The Layton games first emerged during the Nintendo DS era, with three titles arriving through 2007 and 2008. The first trilogy saw the titular professor solving mysteries by tackling various logic and reasoning puzzles. A second trilogy of Layton games emerged in 2009, 2011, and 2013 across the DS and Nintendo 3DS. Those were the last main titles. Since then, spinoffs like Layton Brothers and Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright were the main expression of the franchise. Ports of various titles also appeared on mobile platforms like iOS.

Currently, the only Professor Layton title on Switch is a port of Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy. The game focuses on Hershel Layton's daughter Kartielle, who solves mysteries alongside her assistant Greeves and talking dog Sherl.

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is in development for the Switch. Other platforms or a release date have not yet been announced.

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