Designing the ‘Absurdity’ of The Others: An Interview with Scarlet Nexus’ Designer, Writer and Director

Scarlet Nexus was a surprise new IP from Bandai Namco last year, in part due to its’ “brainpunk-style” post-apocalyptic world, duel person narrative, and the bizarre walking flower aliens that are ‘The Others’

We were lucky enough to be invited to an email interview with three members of the Scarlet Nexus dev team, designer and concept artist Masakazu Yamashiro, writer Takumi Miyajima, and the game’s director Kenji Anabuki who told more about how they crafted the enemies and narrative of the game. 

Creating The Others

We first asked about the Others. The bizarre half-hazard creatures that roam through this ruined world. The creature’s concept artist, Masakazu Yamashiro is known for his similarly deranged surrealist artwork. We asked him what the process was of creating these otherworldly Others.

The Others in Scarlet Nexus are fascinating to me, especially looking at how each of them always has this combination of random components to its design that still looks coherent. Could you talk a bit about the thought process when creating them and how much it fits with the game settings?

Yamashiro: As they are cruel brain-craving monsters that are impossible for humans to communicate with or tell what they are thinking, I designed the Others to be lacking in emotions and thoughtless. However, as simply having them attack mindlessly would be dull, and I needed to design them to be fun to be fought in-game, I added “absurdity” and unique habits to all of them as a counterpoint to their “frightening” nature.

I believe that the reason why the Others, which exhibited the purity of my creativity as it was, were able to “coexist” with the ‘Scarlet Nexus’ world settings is that the art director Mr. Ochiai’s sense of “beauty and ugliness” is very similar to mine. Also, as the Others have specific movements and backgrounds, there are definitely some limitations on how they could be designed. However, the devs had always told me to “feel free to do whatever I want with the design”, so that I don’t feel largely limited while creating them.

A tale of two stories

Our next question was for the game’s scenario writer Takumi Miyajima. A veteran of the Tales Series who also did the screenplay for several episodes of the Fate/Zero anime, we asked her to tell more about how she came up with the game’s unique dual perspective narrative with the game jumping between the stories of protagonists Yuito and Kasane.

One thing that stood out to me with Scarlet Nexus is the dual perspective storytelling. It reminds me of Tales of Xillia as each route in Scarlet Nexus is more varied in its content. So how did the whole story idea and its structure come to light?

Miyajima: I created the enemy characters because the protagonists of a game need to have a goal, and to achieve that goal, there is always an opponent they need to defeat. With that, the story is imagined, and is typically created from the axis of the “protagonist” and the “final boss”. There are two protagonists in Scarlet Nexus, and we wanted the fights and hostility between them to be an obstacle to their aforementioned goals. As such, I started out with the protagonists in this game.

As I had set the protagonist’s ultimate goal to be “keeping the peace of the world”, it rationally translates into the extermination of the Others who turn the gears and inner workings of the game’s universe. I then constructed what will be the “final boss” that poses a threat obstructing this goal. In the pre-stories, I had also concluded that I didn’t want the “final boss” to be one of the Others, so I searched for another potential enemy that could pose the said threat to the protagonist.

Once I had a rough idea of the protagonist and enemies, the next step was to create a rough overall world perspective as the game’s core. I then worked on incorporating the game elements, such as psionic battles, the various ways to defeat the Others, as well as the fundamental purpose of the battles, while ensuring that the world was constructed based on its history. In addition, I had a rough idea of what the future might look like after the game has been cleared, and thus constructed the entire world to lead to that. Think of it as I’m slicing a piece from the universe’s long history and using that particular piece as the main story that is now enjoyed by our players.

I often get asked questions that revolve around where I started when I created the game, and how did I create certain things in the game, but they’re actually tough to answer. But what I had done was to try to create the main character, the final boss, and the world perspective, including its “history” and “future”, simultaneously based on the particular orders I received at that time. Sometimes I had been tasked to create them separately, but since I felt the setting of the characters and the world in which they take place are all related to the “world perspective”, I ended up creating them all together.

The future of Scarlet Nexus

Finally, we ended our chat with the game’s director Kenji Anabuki who previously directed Tales of Xillia 2 and worked on the Super Smash Bros Games.

There’s so much new content being added to the game since last year with Photo Mode and Bonding Episodes being my favorite additions. I guess to wrap it up, are there any more surprises in the future, or how possible is the idea for us to see a sequel?

Anabuki: Thank you for keeping up with Scarlet Nexus updates! I really appreciate your love for it.

I can’t say much about what’s to come in the future, but we hope we can keep providing the best experiences for both new and existing players as much as possible. Please leave your constructive criticisms on social media so that we can pick them up and see if we could do something about them!

Scarlet Nexus is still receiving new content and updates with the latest being the Brain Eater Pack which came with new story episodes.

Launching a new big-budget IP can be difficult nowadays, especially with a game with such a bizarre yet rich style as Scarlet Nexus. With that in mind, It’s great to see that the game is still going strong.

Scarlet Nexus is currently available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. Check out our review of the game for more information.

Scarlet Nexus

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Developer: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Release Date TBC

PlayStation 4, Steam, Xbox One

Take on the role of Yuito Sumeragi, a new recruit to the OSF aiming to become an elite psionic like the one who saved him as a child. Armed with a talent in psycho-kinesis, explore the futuristic city of New Himuka and uncover the mysteries of a Brain Punk future caught between technology and psychic abilities in SCARLET NEXUS.

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