Overview
Kota Furushima is the director of Beast of Reincarnation and a longtime employee at Game Freak. Before taking on his first directorial role, Furushima spent years working across multiple mainline Pokemon titles. His credits include battle planning and UI system design on Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, battle planning on Sword and Shield, and sound management on Legends: Arceus and Scarlet and Violet. Beast of Reincarnation originated from his pitch within Game Freak's internal Gear Project initiative, initially codenamed Project Bloom.
Pokemon career
Furushima joined Game Freak and built his career on the Pokemon franchise. On Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon (2017), he handled battle planning, game UI system design, and communication features planning. He continued as a battle planner on Sword and Shield (2019), then moved to sound management on Legends: Arceus (2022) and Scarlet and Violet (2022). These roles gave him hands-on experience with the intersection of game feel and systems design that shows up clearly in Beast of Reincarnation's hybrid combat approach. The Parry System that feeds into Koo's command menu reflects his years of thinking about how turn-based and real-time mechanics can coexist in the same game.
His work on Pokemon's battle systems gave him a deep understanding of strategic pacing within action sequences. That background is visible in how Beast of Reincarnation layers moment-to-moment sword combat with the slower, more deliberate rhythm of selecting and timing Koo's Bloom Arts.
Project Bloom
Starting around 2020, Furushima developed an original game concept through Gear Project, Game Freak's internal initiative that encourages employees to develop ideas outside the Pokemon franchise. The pitch, codenamed Project Bloom, centered on a post-apocalyptic Japan where nature had reclaimed civilization, and a woman bonded with a canine companion fought through corrupted landscapes. He has said he "simply wanted to tell the story of a woman and her pet." The concept was approved in 2021, and development began using Unreal Engine 5, with Furushima initially working on it alone before the team grew.
The project was publicly announced on May 9, 2023, as part of a partnership with Take-Two Interactive's Private Division label. That publishing arrangement later changed when Private Division was divested to Haveli Investments and rebranded as Fictions, which now serves as the game's publisher. Game Freak has described the Beast of Reincarnation team as "relatively small" but noted it is outsourcing to "a wide number of partner studios."
Directorial approach
Beast of Reincarnation is Furushima's first time directing a full game, and he has not downplayed the difficulty of the transition. In a GameSpot interview, he said that "every single thing" about making the game "has been a challenge," describing the development process as "hard to compare" to other Game Freak titles. He sought to create "something that could express the emotional feeling I get when I come into contact with creative works like watching a movie or reading a novel."
In interviews, he has been notably careful about revealing character details, repeatedly emphasizing that "every character carries great secrets" and that discovering those secrets is meant to be a core part of the experience. He has cited Princess Mononoke as an influence on the game's exploration of the tension between humanity and nature.
On difficulty, Furushima has been clear that he does not want players getting stuck. The game offers three difficulty modes, including a Story Mode with more forgiving parry timing and reduced enemy damage. His stated goal is to make the combat system enjoyable for players of all skill levels, positioning the game away from the Soulslike label that its action-heavy trailers might suggest.
Design philosophy
Furushima's design philosophy centers on the partnership between Emma and Koo. He has described the game as a "one-person, one-dog action RPG" where the two characters complement each other mechanically and narratively. Emma handles real-time sword combat, while Koo provides command-based abilities through the Bloom Arts system. This hybrid structure reflects Furushima's background in both action and strategic game design, drawing on his Pokemon battle system experience while pushing into real-time territory.
He has also spoken about the world's setting in post-apocalyptic Japan as a deliberate choice. In a Famitsu interview, Furushima explained that the Japanese landscape allowed the team to create environments where scenery and corruption coexist in visually striking ways, with the journey from the countryside to the capital evoking the real-life mountainous trek from the Kanto region to Kyoto.