Japanese veteran game creator Keiji Inafune quietly left Level-5 last year, as revealed by the company’s CEO Akihiro Hino on March 3. Inafune was a part of Level-5 for seven years as the head of Level-5 Comcept.
In a new update on Level-5’s official development blog, Akihiro Hino reveals that Inafune left around the middle of last year, which was an “unexpected obstacle” in the development of Level-5 Comcept’s FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time – a new Fantasy Life game slated for release in May this year. Inafune had been the producer of the game, so when he left “we had to reassess and restructure the project,” Hino comments.
The release of Fantasy Life has been postponed several times, with one of the postponements being announced mid-2024. According to Hino, at the time of Inafune’s departure, the game was receiving harsh reviews in internal playtests, and required a complete overhaul of its game system.
Keiji Inafune is known for his work on numerous Capcom hits, including the Mega Man, Onimusha and Dead Rising series. After leaving Capcom in 2010, he founded his own companies Comcept and Intercept, producing titles like Mighty No. 9 and ReCore. He joined Level-5 in 2017 as COO of the Level-5 Comcept subsidiary, overseeing game and app design.
At the time of writing, Inafune has not released any information or statements regarding the matter, so it seems that the new blog post is the first public mention of his departure from Level-5. However, it appears that his new home is the Sapporo-based game company Rocket Studios. In December last year, Inafune was selected as a judge at the Game Creator’s Koshien 2024, at which point he was introduced as “executive officer of Rocket Studios.”
Rocket Studios is headed by former Hudson developer Takashi Takebe. In recent years, the company has been involved in the development of Konami’s Momotaro Dentetsu, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Volume 1 and Sol Cresta.
