The Greatest Game There Needs to Be: Phantom Dust 2

The recent promotion of Phil Spencer has gotten me extremely hopeful for the future of one of my favorite franchises that never was, Phantom Dust.  Phantom Dust was a one-off title for the original Xbox produced by Yukio Futatsugi, best known for the Panzer Dragoon series, including the recent release of Crimson Dragon for Xbox one.

Back in January, it was reported that the biggest Phantom Dust fansite, PhantomDusted.com had re-opened, presumably in response to a Phil Spencer interview where he mentioned Phantom Dust and that there were talks about a reboot:

“I’ve been a big fan of our partnerships in Japan,” Spencer said. “Futatsugi just finished Crimson Dragon, and I’m proud of what he was able to do. We’re talking to him about what we might want to do next with him. There’s some interest out there in some older [intellectual property]. Phantom Dust has come up around whether we would want to reboot that franchise. It’s a discussion right now; there’s nothing’s signed. But we’re talking. It does seem like there’s a lot of interest around that. And we have a good long relationship with him and I think that would be good.”

The best hope for more Phantom Dust

Add the fact that both Spencer and Adam Isgreen, creative director at Microsoft, changed their Twitter profiles to Phantom Dust themed images and you had a perfect storm of hype.

The reason that a game like Phantom Dust can stir up such fervor in spite of it’s relative obscurity is it’s masterful mix of an easy to understand basic concept layered with an unbelievable amount of depth.  In order to understand what makes a sequel so crucial, you have to know what made the original so great.