After leaving Capcom, Street Fighter II creator Yoshiki Okamoto founded Game Republic. The studio’s first game was Genji: Dawn of the Samurai, which Sony Computer Entertainment published. Rival Microsoft then made a deal with Game Republic to develop a game for the Japanese Xbox 360 launch. That’s how Every Party, a board game came to be, but the title flopped.
Game Republic went on to create Folklore and the Phantom Hourglass style Dragon Ball: Origins series. Brash Entertainment signed a deal with Game Republic to make a slate of movie based games and unfortunately for Okamoto, Brash closed. Namco Bandai sort of came to the rescue and agreed to pick up a bunch of Game Republic titles including Clash of the Titans which was in need of a publisher. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom came out last year and Knights Contract just a few months ago.
Sadly, that may be Game Republic’s last title. Their website is gone and their office is up for rent. Japanese blog G-Dash ventured to Game Republic’s headquarters and saw no trace of the video game developer. Siliconera tried to reach out to Game Republic, but have not heard back. This isn’t the first Japanese developer to vanish nearly overnight. The same thing happened to Ninja Studio (Izuna series), Flight Plan (Summon Night), and Gaia Games (Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner).
Knights Contract is still slated for a Japanese release on July 7. In fact, it’s been pushed to consumers now, but there’s no mention of Game Republic on the Japanese site.
