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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 in areas including battle planning, UI design, and sound direction. 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. His credits span multiple generations of the series, where he contributed to battle system planning, user interface work, and sound design. 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

Around 2020, Furushima pitched 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. The concept was greenlit, and development began using Unreal Engine 5.

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.

Directorial approach

Beast of Reincarnation is Furushima's first time directing a full game. 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 natural beauty 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.