Ace Attorney Creators Talk About the Future of the Franchise

At the recent opening of a new Ace Attorney-themed restaurant promotion in Japan, the franchise's masterminds were asked about the future of the franchise. Thanks to translations provided by the Court-Records forums, fans of the Ace Attorney game series can rest easy knowing that the next installment is certainly not out of bounds, even though it's still in the very early stages of development. The interview, conducted by Famitsu, didn't reveal a whole lot, but it's worth scroling through the details for anyone who has been hoping for more news.

While discussing the franchise's most recent entry, Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2, producer Motohide Eshiro said that he and developer/series creator Shu Takumi were "preparing for the future" of the saga. "There's nothing I can say specifically at the moment," said Eshiro. "But [Takumi and I] are thinking hard about what comes next and we're getting things prepared for that right now." Eshiro told fans to look forward to "all" things that the franchise had coming up, which might imply that there's more than just one title idea on the white board at the moment.

Ace Attorney first came to the U.S. as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and has since spawned spin-offs (Dai Gyakuten Saiban, and Apollo Justice games, the latter of which led to Dual Destinies), cross-overs with the Professor Layton game series, a full-fledged anime TV show, and a live action movie. The next game, known very loosely as Ace Attorney 4, was rather eagerly announced right around the time the duo had finished up Rise from the Ashes, the fifth and final episode of Phoenix Wright's singular storyline. Eshiro mentioned that the development team didn't even know the announcement was happening until it actually did. The whole team felt like we'd given it everything we had, and we were all sort of walking around in a daze," he explained. "And that's exactly when the higher-ups publicly announced "we're making Ace Attorney 4! And we were like 'wait, we are!?'"

The Ace Attorney series seems to be an ever-expanding franchise, so it's likely that within the year. we'll be seeing even more news on where it'll be going from here.