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The story
Overseas media report that at least seven developers have left UNSEEN, the studio developing the new action game ‘KEMURI,’ since the start of 2026. Those who departed were almost all senior staff — lead game designers, directors, and senior-level designers — a heavy blow for a small studio said to number only a few dozen people. On 5ch, many posters pointed to a controversial video in which the company reportedly said something to the effect of “people die if we port to Xbox” as the backdrop for the exodus, with discussion turning to worries about the company’s management and whether its PS5-exclusive strategy can hold up.
At least seven people have left in 2026 alone
Source: gamestalk.net / Original article here
What people said
Guess porting work nearly kills you?
Honestly, probably better off that they quit
I think that was more like 'the game won't sell on Xbox so we can't make a living,' right?
Ah, the part where they said porting would kill them so they won't release on Xbox! lol
Forget porting, sounds like the company itself is just a black company (exploitative workplace) lol, this is hilarious
And they're all senior people too
This studio is done for
At this point the ones who left might as well be the real studio
These people should just start their own company and go multiplatform instead of PS-only
Wait, this many left a 40-person studio?
Even if it were 7 junior staff that'd be rough, but this looks like the end
Meanwhile Kojima (Kojikan) seems to have been saved by Xbox
But the result was just advertising that their management can't even choose their words properly, exposing a lack of qualification as executives
No wonder people are jumping ship
It's also coming to PC
What are the PlayStation fanboys gonna do now
They'll probably get cut loose by Sony eventually too
Guess it's karma that the same thing is happening now that she's the one running a company
Talking about wanting to go PlayStation-first
There was that overseas company that put out two pieces of shovelware doing the same thing
you could hear staff in the background laughing mockingly
That interview was clearly staged as a smear campaign
And they filmed it themselves, too
Basically brown-nosing up to SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment), begging for favors in the name of loyalty
No wonder any decent creator would walk out
That laughter was genuinely unpleasant
The kind of laugh you'd hear from a Fuji TV employee on a Tunnels (Tonneruzu) show
If that's really why they put the video out
I'd love to know how they felt the following week when word got out that Kojima got dropped by SIE and was heading to Xbox
LMAO that's way too funny 🤣
Can't relate to that feeling, but it's true the loyalists keep dropping like flies
Realistically though, it's PlayStation that publishers are leaving
Kojima was pissed off about it too, wasn't he?
When you get a mass exodus like this all at once, unless it's unpaid wages, it's usually because the team has fallen apart
If they keep saying 'people die,' that's scary — good luck getting bug reports out of them
Sounds like Mikami's new game after going independent will probably snub Xbox too
lol the logic there makes no sense at all
Staff started leaving in droves right after they announced PS5 exclusivity at the State of Play, so maybe so lol
I don't want to play a game made by liars
There are plenty of games that release on PC and Switch but skip both PS and Xbox, so maybe it's the same reason as those
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
UNSEEN is the studio founded by Ikumi Nakamura, who served as director on ‘Ghostwire: Tokyo’ at Tango Gameworks, after she left the company; ‘KEMURI’ is its first title. The departure count cited here was independently compiled by the source, gamestalk.net, and the company itself has not officially explained the reasons behind the exits. On the thread, posters repeatedly pointed to backlash over an interview video touching on Xbox porting as an underlying cause of the departures, but this is purely speculation on 5ch’s part, and no causal link between the two has been confirmed. It’s generally understood in the industry that when leads and directors leave in quick succession from a studio of only a few dozen people, it tends to affect a project’s progress and quality, and many posters voiced concern along those lines. At the same time, opinions were split over whether the departures — and the video itself — were justified, making this a topic that resists any simple verdict of right or wrong.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Lead, Director, and Senior Staff Continue to Leave ‘KEMURI’ Developer UNSEEN.”
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