At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, Japanese game studio SuperNiche announced their new game Etrange Overlord, set to release on March 26 next year. The game is described as a “sushi lane musical action adventure,” but its word salad of a genre is far from the most chaotic news being revealed in the wake of the announcement. As Famitsu reports, Roman Kitayama, the author of the original script the game is based on – never actually existed. Their true identity was actually Sohei Niikawa, the former president of Nippon Ichi Software and founder of SuperNiche.
While showing off some gameplay bits during Famitsu’s special livestream on YouTube, NIS’ former president Niikawa revealed brand-new information about his company’s upcoming game – including the staff roll. According to Niikawa, the title is developed by Gemdrops, the studio which helped develop games like The Hundred Line, and published by Broccoli. Niikawa took on the role of producer, with RE:Zero illustrator Shinichiro Ootsuka in the art department. While most of the staff listed are familiar names in the industry, the identity of Etrange Overlord’s “up-and-coming” original author Roman Kitayama was shrouded in mystery. That is, until Niikawa dropped the bomb.
“It was me,” he confessed, pointing at himself. “I quit my previous company and became a writer. And until today, I’ve been secretly working as an underground author.” Niikawa resigned from his role as the president and representative director of Nippon Ichi Software in August 2022, and immediately started working undercover, writing novels, manga scripts and game pitches. As the X account for his Roman Kitayama persona was created a month prior to his resignation, it seems like this three-year-long prank was a move he’d been planning to pull ever since his days at NIS.
On his official X account, Niikawa announced: “The true identity of Roman Kitayama has been revealed. I’ve been secretly active [as Kitayama] for the past three years. From now on, Sohei Niikawa and Roman Kitayama will be announcing their future activities via their respective accounts. Thank you for your continued support.” Despite the grand scheme coming to an end, it sounds like Niikawa will continue pursuing side projects under the name of Roman Kitayama, while keeping his main work as a game producer and SuperNiche representative under his real name. But as both of his personas are currently working on the same game – from a different position – fans should probably prepare themselves for double the mischief leading up to Etrange Overlord’s release.
Etrange Overlord is set to release on March 28, 2026, for PlayStation 4, 5 and Nintendo Switch.
