Konami's former go-to guy for Castlevania, up until MercuySteam's reboot, was Koji Igarashi. Igarashi produced multiple Castlevania games including fan-favorite Symphony of the Night. A few days ago Igarashi announced via Polygon that he was leaving Konami in pursuit of founding his own development studio to “make the kind of games I really want to make” and games that his fans would like.
In an interesting turn of events, Igarashi stated that he'd like to continue his work on the 2D Metroidvania genre if Nintendo were to ask him to develop the next Metroid game. Speaking to IGN when asked if he would be interested in reviving the Metroid series, Igarashi said that he would “love the chance”.
“Whether it’s possible or not comes down to the [intellectual property] holder, which in this case would be Nintendo, and whether they want to work with me, “ Igarashi told IGN through a translator. “But, if they did want to work with me, I would love the chance of doing that.”
Igarashi working on Metroid would be pretty ironic seeing as how he's considered a pioneer of the Metroid-Vania genre. He's been working on the latter half of that word-play for many years, so why not the former half at Nintendo?
Castlevania Producer Koji Igarashi Leaves Konami After Lords of Shadow 2 Release
The last Metroid game to release was Metroid: Other M by Team Ninja. Reception to Other M was pretty mixed, with hardcore series fans being less than happy with the end result that painted Samus Aran as a weak, love struck character.
Nintendo has been mum on the Metroid series since the release of Other M nearly four years ago. A classic, 2D Metroidvania style game would be a nice approach to reviving the series. If Nintendo aren't already working on a new Metroid game (and with how the Wii U is doing they really should be), then Igarashi would be prime talent to scoop up. Nintendo could even revive the series with multiple releases - on the Wii U and 3DS.
Koji Igarashi's next game is up in the air as he has just left Konami, so let's see what happens!
