Suikoden spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicles will get a sequel to ‘carry on the legacy’ of late creator
Eiyuden Chronicles, the RPG series that’s effectively a sequel-slash-spiritual successor to nineties and early noughties JRPG classic Suikoden, will continue with a sequel despite the death of its creator earlier this year.
Yoshitaka Murayama created Suikoden in the mid-1990s over at Konami before departing after 2002’s PlayStation 2-only Suikoden III. He later went on to found developers Rabbit & Bear Studios, working alongside fellow Suikoden veterans – including character designer and artist Junko Kawano – to create Eiyuden Chronicles, crowdfunded via one of the biggest video game Kickstarters to date, raising over £3.4m, in 2020.
Murayama passed away as the result of complications related to an ongoing illness in early February, having released action-RPG prologue Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising in 2022 but sadly not living to see the release of this year’s full-blooded RPG instalment Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.
“We want to maintain his legacy and vision with this game and know that he would have wanted the rich world he has created with Eiyuden Chronicle to live on,” Rabbit & Bear wrote at the time.
Despite the death of the studio’s head and the series’ writer, Rabbit & Bear have confirmed that they plan to “mov[e] forward with a sequel” to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, which is due to release next week, reiterating that they “hope we will be able to carry on Murayama’s legacy” by continuing the series.
“It is very sad that Murayama is not with us anymore, but we have discussed many things with him,” the studio’s team wrote in a recent Reddit AMA in response to whether the series could go on.
That could also include potential spin-offs, which the team said they had “a lot of ideas” for, but would only come once “Hundred Heroes has sold many copies”.
“I would be delighted if we could grow the series enough to be able to expand the scope of the series,” said art director and producer Junichi Murakami. “If many people support this game, I would like to try many challenges.”
While Eiyuden Chronicles clearly harkens back to Murayama’s work on Suikoden, the game’s developers reflected that he “was very reluctant to have his past work or the word “nostalgic” used for this project. He always wanted to create something new.”
If you’re yet to discover Murayama’s work, old or new, now’s as good a time as any. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes releases on April 23rd, and there are HD remasters of the first two Suikoden games also on the way.
