Atelier Ryza 3 producer says they’re moving away from fan service content

Publisher Koei Tecmo and developer Gust are apparently moving away from fan service after Atelier Ryza 3, despite the sub-series exploding in popularity from its attractive protagonist.

If you’ve followed any of our content on the Atelier Ryza series, you’ll find lots of it has attractive and/or purposefully sexy – or fan service – content. While series producer Junzo Hosoi was surprised players found Ryza sexy, they’re apparently toning that down.

When asked if Gust is trying to redirect the franchise to focus less on fan service, Hosoi said this was the case, and that they want to appeal to a “wider audience.”

“Yes, it is,” Hosoi said to Nintendo Life. “We want as many players as possible to pick up and play our games. For this reason, we are constantly listening to the opinions of various players and looking for and coming up with content that they will enjoy again. We would be happy if many people think of Gust games when they think of JRPGs.”

This response is a bit confusing when you consider Gust has heavily leaned in on Ryza’s attractiveness – they’ve even slightly tweaked her design as the games progressed to seemingly make her thighs bigger. They even proudly proclaimed previous titles wouldn’t be censored.

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key was just released on March 23rd in Japan and March 24th worldwide for Windows PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. In case you missed it – find our thorough review here!