Visions of manadeveloper Ouka Studio was just one of many teams hit by the recent NetEase layoffs. Fears of the studio’s imminent closure began spreading right after Ouka releasedVisions of Manaand were soon followed by massive layouts that spared only a handful of employees.
That’s when Kenji Ozawa resigned. The co-director of the studio’s last title was one of its few employees unaffected by the layouts, but the future of the studio was clear. Ouka would be closed only a few months later, in December 2024. Whilesharing his grievances with Automaton, Ozawa lamented thestate of the video game industryand accused the management at NetEase of dumping the consequences of wrong decision-making on developers. “Management”, he says, “needs to protect creators”. This seems to be the impetus behind his new project, Studio Sasanqua.
What we know about Studio Sasanqua
There isn’t a lot of information on Studio Sasanqua. Kenji Ozawa seems to be the representative director and,according to Automaton, might be the one providing funding. It comes with a weirdly artsy trailer (which you can see above) and astylish, Japanese-only website.
No game has been announced as of yet nor do we know of any developers who are following Ozawa in this adventure.
Which studios did NetEase close?
Despite its words about “investing more, not less” in the game, NetEase is infamous for closing one of the studios behind the extremely successfulMarvel Rivalsand firing its game director. A similar fate fell over the newly founded studios Worlds Untold and Jar of Sparks.Four studio closures in a few monthsis not a good sign, and things might be worse still.
According to an investigation fromGame File, more of NetEase’s foreign studios might be at risk. The Chinese developer and publisher has invested heavily in new studios all over the world in the last few years and is allegedly trying to pull back investments from most of them. If this is true, it means dozens of studios will have to close down only a few years after being opened.
