We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Daiki Hamazaki, the Series Director for Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis. We had the chance to talk about the new updates and expansions coming to the game, as well as the challenges and innovations the team has faced. Here’s what he had to say about the Nameless City, new story chapters, and the evolution of the Phantasy Star series.
Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis is available now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC (via Steam, Epic Games Store or the Microsoft Store) and PlayStation 4 as a free-to-play game.
Azario Lopez: The Nameless City is described as a significant addition to PSO2: New Genesis. Can you elaborate on the types of adventures and challenges players will encounter in this new area?
Daiki Hamazaki: The Nameless City Exploration was developed with the concept of balancing exploration and replayability in mind. We felt that the element of risk added to create replayability was a challenging element for permanent content. Elements such as taking more damage from the enemy as the number of exploration points increases, or halving the number of exploration points when the player becomes incapacitated, fall under this category. However, we believe we have reached a point where players can come to terms with playing the game with just the right amount of tension. We also believe that by making chests the main method of obtaining items, rather than having players rely on combat to do so, we have succeeded in providing a fun way to explore while opening treasure chests.
Azario Lopez: Chapter 7 continues a story that has been unfolding for four years. How do you ensure the narrative remains fresh and engaging for both long-time players and newcomers to the series?
Daiki Hamazaki: Keeping our long-time players in mind, we were conscious about differentiating the characters that appear in NGS from the characters in PSO2 in terms of their personalities and designs. In the early days of NGS, we intentionally avoided elements that would link the game to PSO2 so that new players wouldn’t be left behind. This time, however, we have incorporated elements that are also nostalgic for PSO2 players, so we hope that they’ll be able to enjoy them with a renewed sense of excitement.
Azario Lopez: The new Far Eastern themes for the Creative Space are visually stunning. What kind of cultural and architectural research went into designing these elements, and how do you think they will enhance the player experience?
Daiki Hamazaki: There were no buildings in particular that were used as a motif. Our dev staff are Japanese, so it is likely that they based their designs off the things that they saw in their everyday lives and came up with them organically.
Azario Lopez: Sonic’s birthday celebration has been a long-standing tradition in PSO2. How did this tradition start, and what new features or events can players look forward to in this year’s celebration?
Daiki Hamazaki: As I recall, this event started back when Episode 3 of PSO2 was released, so it’s been going on for about eight years. The original PSO was developed by the same group company that developed Sonic. Eventually, that group company merged with Sega headquarters. While its members were divided up into different departments within Sega, the collab was born from the strong connections forged between the dev studio’s workers. For this year’s celebration, we will be delivering a new quest that is similar to last year’s event. Please note this year’s Sonic collaboration wrapped up on June 25th.
Azario Lopez: With the introduction of new 11-star Rarity Eredim weapons and new enemies, how do you balance the challenge level to cater to both seasoned veterans and newer players?
Daiki Hamazaki: Since the main hack-and-slash element will consist of the careful selection of EX Augments now, there are a lot more opportunities to obtain the weapons themselves compared to the rare weapons we’ve had up to now. Also, the play cycle up to this point was to get the best weapon first, and then start adding EX Augments to it, but now, by implementing the transfer function that transfers EX Augments only, we’ve created a cycle where you can enhance your weapon perfectly once, and then overwrite the newer weapons with your ideal EX Augment combinations. We think this will make for a weapon series that can be enjoyed by both new and veteran players alike.
Azario Lopez: PSO2 New Genesis offers a high degree of character customization. How have player feedback and community suggestions influenced the customization options available in the game?
Daiki Hamazaki: Player suggestions have had a significant impact on the improvements to customization features and the addition of new elements. We had decided to make improvements, such as increasing the number of accessory slots and displaying customized values, based on player requests.
Azario Lopez: The game emphasizes cross-platform play. What were some of the technical and design challenges you faced in ensuring a seamless experience across different platforms?
Daiki Hamazaki: We are making technical and design efforts to ensure that players with different hardware specifications, interfaces, and communication environments can play together as seamlessly as possible. Also, having to conduct checks on all of the platforms during the debugging process makes for quite the challenge.
Azario Lopez: The Far Eastern themes also include items like portable Holograms of sorcerous circles and tea sets. Can you discuss the role of such items in enhancing the game’s social and creative aspects?
Daiki Hamazaki: We created this set with the objective of providing players with the ability to create Creative Spaces and to form communities that have a greater emphasis on Japanese aesthetic themes.
Azario Lopez: Looking back on your 15 years at SEGA, how do you feel the Phantasy Star series has evolved, and what are you most proud of in the development of PSO2 New Genesis?
Daiki Hamazaki: It would be difficult to pick just one thing, but I am proud of our stance of constantly challenging ourselves in the development of NGS. When NGS first launched, it came with many firsts for the series, like the challenge of introducing open fields to the game, along with making adjustments to dashing and gliding, and expanding battle actions with multi-weapons. Last year we even took on the challenge of user-generated content with Creative Spaces. The recently-released Nameless City and EX Augments were also a challenge in terms of managing the balance between exploration and replayability, and we see the upcoming M.A.R.S. as a major challenge that surpasses the current highly-controllable player actions even further. I am very thankful and proud that we have been able to celebrate our third anniversary with our players by our side as a result of our continuous efforts to meet these challenges.
