Update: Keita Takahashi Is Making a New Game Under a New Company Called Uvula
Update 7/28/2022 2:45pm: Apparently, Keita Takahashi’s next game may not be called Uvula. Uvula instead appears to be the name of his new studio.
In the trailer published to the Annapurna YouTube page, the game is just called “???” with the YouTube description including “Developed by UVULA.”
Does that mean Takahashi’s game will be about uvulas at all? Who knows? There IS a uvula in the teaser. But otherwise, it now seems we know even less about whatever he’s up to than we did before. Still looks cute though.
Original story 7/28/2022:
During today’s Annapurna Interactive Showcase we got a brief teaser for Takahashi’s next game. It showed a boy in Takahashi’s signature art style gently snoring away, with the camera zoomed in close on his uvula – you know, the little hangy down thing in the back of the throat. It slowly zoomed out to his face, and a dog licks the boy’s cheek. That’s all!
It’s anyone’s guess how this is going to make a game, but if anyone can do it, it’s probably Takahashi. All of his past games have been extremely quirky and original, from Katamari (a game about rolling every object on earth into a giant katamari ball to send into space and turn into a star) to Wattam, a game that inexplicably involved a lot of poop.
Notably, Wattam was developed by Funomena, which appears to have shut down as of earlier this year following a report from People Make Games alleging that studio head Robin Hunicke had emotionally abused the staff. A later report from Fanbyte stated that Takahashi and Hunicke had clashed over the design of Wattam and eventually physically barricaded themselves off from one another.
Annapurna Interactive published Wattam, as well as games by both Mountains and Fullbright, which have also had allegations levvied against them in the last few years. Annapurna has not commented on the situation at Funomena, and it is unclear whether anyone else from Funomena is involved in Uvula.
You can get a full rundown of everything announced at today’s Annapurna Interactive showcase in our roundup.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
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