Astral Chain Director Seemingly Forms New Studio After Leaving PlatinumGames

Late last year, it was reported that several PlatinumGames veterans had seemingly left the studio. While only Origines de Bayonetta‘ Abebe Tinari confirmed this news, it looks increasingly likely that Chaîne astrale directeur Takahisa Taura has followed suit, potentially forming a new company in the process (thanks, Tout sur Nintendo).

Initial rumours about Taura’s PlatinumGames departure arose after the director (alongside several other Platinum vets) removed all mention of the studio from his social media bios. Adding fuel to the fire, one fan on Twitter noted that Taura’s Facebook profile has been updated with a new place of work: Eel Game Studio.

We know very little about this studio or Taura’s role in it at the time of writing, though its registration info (as flagged on RéinitialiserEra) states that it was established in late 2024 and is based in Tokyo. Nous savons, choquant.

That’s not to say that fans aren’t already piling on the speculation, attention. Plus tôt cette semaine, a Reddit user (who swiftly deleted their account) pris à la PlatinumGames forum, claiming to have information about ‘Chaîne astrale 2‘. According to their story — allegedly sourced from “someone who previously worked at Platinum Games” — a sequel was in development at Platinum, but conflicts from within the studio and from Nintendo meant that the project was eventually rebooted with the Big N at the helm (studio head Atsushi Inaba said that the series was under Nintendo’s control back in 2021).

It’s an elaborate read, but one that presque makes sense the longer you go with it — if you can get past the suspicious account deletion and the “Platinium” typo in the topic, c'est:

Si (and it’s a big Ti est certainement l'une des cartes graphiques les plus puissantes du marché) Astral Chain’s director truly has left PlatinumGames and has since formed a new studio, there’s every chance that a full sequel could be in the works. We’re reading all this with a hefty pinch of salt, naturally, but it’s fun to dream.

Taura joined the likes of Metal Gear Rising‘s Kenji Saito, The Wonderful 101‘s Masaki Yamanaka and the aforementioned Abebe Tinari with the bio updates late last year, seemingly confirming a huge blow to the studio’s talent.

Cela dit, it would be foolish to count PlatinumGames out. Just yesterday at Xbox’s Developer_Direct 2025, the studio popped up with Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja to reveal Ninja Gaiden 4 for Xbox, PlayStation et PC. Non, a Nintendo version hasn’t been announced (encore), but it’s clear that work is still underway from the Bayonetta developer, regardless of how many of its veterans may have left.