Level-5 wants another Dark Cloud as much as you do

But it’s not up to them, says CEO

We’ve seen the return of several beloved — and not-so-beloved — series in recent years, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to revive one. As Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino reminded Polygon during an interview at Gamescom, sometimes there’s too much red tape around something to bring it back, no matter how much fans and developers love the game.

That seems to be the case with the Dark Cloud franchise, which saw two entries on PlayStation 2 in the early 2000s. The fantastical action role-playing games met particular critical and commercial success in North America. When Sony introduced PlayStation 2 emulation to PlayStation 4 in fall 2015, Dark Cloud was one of the first to join the library, winning back old fans and attracting new ones to the short-lived franchise.

The Dark Cloud games helped make a name for Level-5 and Hino, their producer, and the studio has only grown in visibility in recent years. Now that Level-5 has established itself as a trusted developer of smash-hit RPGs and adventure games (the Professor Layton series, Ni no Kuni and two Dragon Quest titles among them), is there a chance the studio would consider reviving its early classics?

“There has been a lot of requests and voices to create a Dark Cloud 3 or some form of Dark Cloud,” Hino told Polygon. “That IP is co-owned or managed by Sony Computer Entertainment, so it’s not something that we can do or act upon on our own.”

Consider those dreams dashed, then, although Hino did hint that Level-5 and Sony had entered “negotiations” over Dark Cloud in the past. (“I’m not sure if that’s happening now,” he was quick to add, after telling us of his own personal interest in a revival.)

What’s more likely is Professor Layton and other wholly owned Level-5 franchises getting revamps and remasters, which may be a small salve for the studio’s biggest supporters.

“Everything beyond Layton and newer is all controlled by Level-5,” Hino said.

“There’s a higher chance that we’ll see some of that, like older Layton games from when we were less well known. There’s a high chance we might see that on more modern platforms,” like PlayStation 4 or Windows PC.

That’s all in the air for now, with no concrete plans for any ports. But for the Dark Cloud 3 hopefuls out there, it may be time to uncross those fingers — unless Sony has plans of its own, of course.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/22/16182888/dark-cloud-3-level-5-akihiro-hino-interview

I got Dark Cloud, still need to play through all of it! Then I'll try to find a copy of 2. Hopefully they do make a third one though, the series is rather unique.

So they don't want it at all and have already forgotten that it even exists?

Nobody cares. Thankfully RPGs have moved beyond the 2000 era.

Do a new one then, and maybe another "rogue galaxy" for sony as well?

I dont want dark clouds. I want fluffy white clouds on a blue sky with the sun shining bright.

uh, what? Dark Cloud 3 would certainly do decently. What makes you think that it's not a game people would want.

Dark Cloud was never a relevant franchise to begin with. Dark Cloud was a modest succes, Dark Cloud 2 stayed under most people's radar. 15 years have gone by since. With development budgets increasing tenfold I don't think Dark Cloud 3 would be a logical investment.

I might be wrong.

You sure about that? What makes you think Dark Cloud 3 wouldn't move beyond the 2000 era? Shouldnt that be expected?  Are you aware that over 80% of active JRPG's started even before the 2000 era?

every jrpg is welcome