Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Back in April 2021’s Nintendo Indie World presentation, Konami came out of the woodwork to surprise us with a stylish looking indie roguelite action platformer, GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon. A fresh version of a classic Konami game released on the Famicom back in 1987, Undying Moon brought the samurai and yokai slasher back from obscurity in 2021 to give players a fun, new, and stylized hack-‘n-slash experience under the direction of developer GuruGuru. This isn’t an isolated thing though. According to a recent interview, Konami wants to explore more indie-styled revivals of its older IPs.
Speaking in an interview with JPGames posted on May 24, 2021, Konami shared a little bit of the thought going into its collaboration with GuruGuru on GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon, as well as teasing the possibility of similar projects in the future.
“We are continually inspired by various indie titles, and how they innovate and produce exciting games,” Konami lead producer Shin Murato said. “We felt that GetsuFumaDen would be an interesting IP to bring back to follow this indie approach, and so we decided to contact GuruGuru as we know the team well… In terms of other collaborations, please wait for future projects like this!”
It’s a promising sentiment to be sure. I, myself, have been a little mixed on whether or not I’d consider GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon an actual indie with a major publisher like Konami at its back. However, there’s no denying the game has very indie stylistics and, having launched in early access on May 13 via Steam on PC, is just fun to play if the game’s Mostly Positive review section is any indication so far. Konami also backed a previous indie project in 2020 in the form of Skelettack that has also been received well.
If this indie style of outsourcing and collaboration is the way in which various older Konami IP live on, it might not be such a bad thing. Especially if they’re on par with the presentation of GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon. With that particular game also set for a Switch release in 2022 as revealed on the April 14 Nintendo Indie World, stay tuned for more details on that and further Konami indie collaborations coming up in the future.