An unreleased PS4 exclusive game, first announced back in 2016, just got an official update, 10 years later. And the update is good news. The update is that the game is still in development, despite speculation that it was quietly cancelled. That said, it sounds like the PS4 exclusive game — which is presumably a PS5 exclusive game at this point, if not multi-platform — is still a ways off.
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Back in 2016, Tokyo-based developer Cygames — a studio founded back in 2011 that is best-known for the Granblue Fantasy series — announced Project Awakening, an ambitious AAA action RPG that may have proved too ambitious considering the current timeline. Details on the game, all these years later, remain scarce, and the latest trailer was released in 2018, minus a tech showcase video in 2021. This trailer can be seen below.
New Update
The new update comes the way of Koichi Watanabe, the president of Cygames. Speaking to Famitsu, the gaming executive revealed that the forgotten PS4 exclusive game is “progressing.” In fact, it’s “really starting to take shape,” according to Watanabe.
“Development [on Project Awakening] is, of course, steadily progressing,” said Watanabe. “What I can say at the moment is that it is ‘really starting to take shape.’ Everyone on the team is working each day with a real sense of confidence that things are coming together.”
It’s hard to speculate over this statement too much, but “really starting to take shape” makes it sound like the game isn’t very far along in development. If it were in the latter stages of development, you’d expect it to have already taken shape and be in the polishing and refinement stage. To this end, we do not expect this to be released anytime soon, but it is apparently still going to be released at some point.
As alluded to earlier, this game is probably not even coming to PS4 anymore. The question is whether it’s still a PlayStation exclusive/a PlayStation console exclusive. Unfortunately, we do not know, partially because it was unclear what the deal was in the first place. In other words, it was unclear if Sony moneyhatted the exclusivity or if it was a natural development, which sometimes happens with games developed out of Japan because Xbox doesn’t have a presence there. Meanwhile, the technical ambition of the game seemingly ruled out a Nintendo release, at least at launch. It would be surprising if Project Awakening isn’t available on PC at launch.
Unfortunately, there is no word on when the next update on the PS4 game will be, let alone when it will resurface with its first trailer in eight years. Perhaps this update telegraphs that it will resurface soon, but this is just speculation.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the video game conversations happening over on the ComicBook Forum.
