God Eater and Freedom Wars developers are now working on Project Shaz

by Kite Stenbuck on 24 May, 2022

Former God Eater and Freedom Wars developer Toshiyuki Yasui revealed that he had established his own company named TVT Co., Ltd. (an abbreviation of Tokyo Virtual Theory). The company also published a new press release that revealed two new game projects from the company. One of them is Project Shaz, and it is being worked on by staff members who formerly worked on the two aforementioned titles.

Toshiyuki Yasui joined Shift in 2003, and he was involved in the creations of God Eater in 2010 and Freedom Wars in 2014. However, Shift was not present in God Eater 3's development as the company was busy working on Code Vein (Marvelous First Studio took up the job for developing GE3). Yasui revealed that he established the new TVT company in 2019—the same year Code Vein came out.

Toshiyuki Yasui will become the producer of Project Shaz, and joining him in the team will be the director Kenei Nakasha (.hack//G.U. series, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle), scenario writer Tomokazu Fukushima (Freedom Wars, Metal Gear Solid 3), and art director Kususaga Rin (Fate/Grand Order, Lord of Vermilion).

Project Shaz will use Theory Engine, a new open platform middleware engine currently being developed by TVT and intended for multiplayer online action games. The company promises that this engine will make it possible to support faster and serverless multiplayer sessions. Former God Eater engineers Katsuichi Satake and Daisuke Emura are part of the engine's programmer team.

TVT has yet to mention the release window and platforms for Project Shaz, but they have shared two artwork images related to the game. You can find them right below.

The character artwork image also included notes about the character concepts. The creator specifically requested the characters to have a lot of variations in designs, forms, and colors, and they should also fit the character backgrounds written by Fukushima. The characters are also designed to appeal more to Japanese and Asian audiences, with the methods of drawing lines and shadows being inspired by Atlus' Persona series.

Project Shaz is not the only new game announced by TVT. The same press release revealed that they are also working on Project JabberWocky. While the latter will also use the same Theory Engine for serverless multiplayer, it will be a rhythm action game created by Patapon director Hiroyuki Kotani and Freedom Wars composer Kemmei Adachi.

Meanwhile, Shift is still intact and they are also working on a new game project. On April 9, 2021, the company opened recruitment for development staff members for a new action RPG aimed at the worldwide market.