"The level of interest has exceeded my expectations": Masahiro Yuge opens up on Truxton Extreme and Toaplan's future

A Toaplan veteran and the series' iconic composer, Masahiro Yuge founded studio Tatsujin in 2017 to take charge of the Japanese studio's legacy, which had been flooded with licensing requests for its classic shoot'em ups. Almost forty years after the original, he's about to release Truxton Extreme, his most ambitious production to date, on July 30 for Steam, Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

In an interview with Time Extension, Yuge discusses one of the game's most talked-about choices: dropping the series' traditional vertical TATE format in favor of a 16:9 display built for modern screens. The main design challenge, he says, was balancing the visual impact of 3D scenery with the clarity shmup veterans expect, a delicate exercise on a project of this scale where a full return to 2D pixel art simply wasn't realistic, in his own words.

More Toaplan classics could follow

Asked about what comes next, Yuge shares that «the level of interest and support has exceeded my expectations» regarding the project's reception. He now floats the possibility of reviving other historic franchises from Toaplan's catalog, mentioning Hellfire, Dogyuun, and Twin Hawk in particular, while stressing that he wants to stay attuned to fan expectations before committing to a new project.

Source: Time Extension