Aquaplus recently announced that Utawarerumono: Past and Present Rediscovered will launch worldwide on May 27, 2026. With this being the conclusion and final installment of the long-running JRPG series, Aquaplus will be moving on to Jasmine and other new IPs going forward. According to the company’s COO Naoya Shimokawa, future releases will likely see a significant bump in quality, thanks to Aquaplus’s new parent company Yuke’s.
When Yuke’s, with its track record in developing pro wrestling games, announced that it was acquiring Aquaplus in August last year, it came as a pretty unusual surprise to fans of both developers. Apparently, it was also a surprise to Shimokawa himself. Talking to Famitsu, he comments, “I bet a lot of people thought, ‘Why Yuke’s?’ And honestly, I did too, and I heard similar reactions from within the company (laughs).”
However, after becoming a fully-owned subsidiary of Yuke’s, it seems Aquaplus’s possibilities have expanded significantly. “What I actually felt after joining forces with them was their high level of development capability. They particularly excel in 3D technology and have extraordinary development skills, and I think the quality of Aquaplus games will rise dramatically.”
While the two developers don’t have any solidified plans yet, Shimokawa has been in talks with Yuke’s president Yukinori Taniguchi about someday making a large-scale game that combines Aquaplus storytelling, characters and music, with Yuke’s advanced development capaibilities. While Yuke’s has already been vocal about how valuable it considers the Aquaplus acquisition for its future project, this is the first time we’re hearing directly from Aquaplus’s side.
