Back in 2012, game creator Hideo Kojima unveiled a new Zone of the Enders project titled “Enders Project”. And now, in 2013, the project is currently suspended.
On a recent episode of Hideo Kojima’s online radio show, the game creator talked about Z.O.E. and the Enders Project.
While discussing the difficulty of bringing Zone of the Enders to the PS3 for the HD remaster (the reason was due to the different hardware architecture between the PS2 and PS3), Kojima felt that the HD version wasn’t quite up to snuff performance wise, that it cost time and money, and that it ultimately disappointed longtime fans. (FYI: There’s a patch coming for the PS3 version; the Xbox 360 version, it seems, plays fine without a patch.)
Kojima pointed out that the original team didn’t do the HD version; instead, it was, from the sound of it, subcontracted out. What’s more, Kojima said that because the subpar version is in HD and for current gen hardware, it would be around longer, perhaps, than the original version. That’s something that Kojima thinks bothers the original developers — that they probably wanted the game to look and play great.
So what does this mean for a new Z.O.E.?
“Even when people abroad see me, I’m often asked about a Zone of the Enders sequel,” Kojima said. (Translation note: In the original Japanese, Kojima said, “Anubis 2”. In Japan, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner was titled Anubis: Zone of the Enders. “Anubis 2” would, thus, be Zone of the Enders 3.)
But because of what happened with the HD version, Kojima said plans for the sequel were shelved. “Because what happened,” Kojima continued, “the producer and everything were cut, too.”
Last year, Kojima said he would be producing the Enders Project. However, he said he wouldn’t be writing, designing, or directing the game. Instead, staff at Kojima Productions was handling those duties.
“Right now,” Kojima said, “nothing’s happening [on the project]. We originally said we were going to do a sequel, but the team has been disbanded.”
According to Kojima, he’d like to know, once again, if people are interested in playing another Zone of the Enders. This is a question Kojima Productions asked previously.
…Well, are you?
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Picture: Dengeki
Comments
3 responses to “That New Zone Of Enders Is Canned… For Now”
I’ve got the HD collection on XBox and I’ve played through the whole of the first game (all four hours of it) and didn’t notice any particular problems; it seemed comparable to running the PS2 version on an emulator with upscaling. The cinematics are still low res, which is jarring, but I assume they don’t have the original files to re-render in high def. I was more put out that the the HD collection didn’t include Fist of Mars than I was about any translation issues.
And yes, I’d love a new ZoE.
I would play the hell out of a ZoE2 sequel. (ZoE was meh, ZoE2 was a triumph.)
The HD collection was the sub-par version? Wow, the PS2 version must have been mind-blowingly amazing then. Disappointing they aren’t going to do another one, the HD collection made a fan out of me so I was looking forward to it.