The raging success of Fitness Boxing has pushed Imagineer to make a comeback in console games 

Imagineer and Toybox recently announced the new title Mystery Walk. Due for release in December for the Nintendo Switch, it is a murder mystery adventure game. This will be Imagineer’s first “game game” in a while, as opposed to their recent health and sports software such as the Fitness Boxing series. 

In a recent interview with Famitsu, Imagineer’s CEO Kazunori Sumioka says that Imagineer’s return to full-scale console games was propped up by the success of Fitness Boxing. “To give you the wider context, Imagineer used to release many console games, such as the Medabot series on the Game Boy, and the Pro Baseball King series on the Nintendo 64. However, for a certain period, we took a break from console game development.” 

This break ended in 2018, with the release of the first Fitness Boxing for the Nintendo Switch – which would prove to be a very rewarding move for Imagineer. The first title sold over 1 million copies, and through a subsequent sequel and several spin-off titles, the series grew even more popular, selling over 2.9 million copies worldwide. 

This experience inspired Sumioka to push Imagineer to compete in the console game scene yet again – which was the company’s initial purpose when it was founded. As he had grown distant from the game industry himself, he concentrated efforts on staff from Imagineer’s game-focused subsidiaries, as well as recruiting new employees. 

“Through developing and selling Fitness Boxing, I realized how much technology in the game industry has evolved. However, I also realized that the basic principle of creating games that people find entertaining has not changed,” Sumioka comments. From there, the CEO took to changing the notion that “video games were something handled by subsidiaries” that had become dominant among Imagineer’s employees, and started soliciting ideas for a brand-new video game.

Mystery Walk is scheduled to be released on December 12 for the Nintendo Switch in Japan. An overseas release is still TBD.