He's retiring... His contract will expire, so of course they can replace him.
Emi Takei didn't retire. She didn't take a planned leave of absence. She got pregnant out of marraige at 23, and her agency had to fork out a tonne of cash to offset her damaged image.
Given they didn't replace her for Nioh's DLCs, I'd imagine she's still contracted as Okatsu. Whether that means she'll actually record again for the character is anyone's guess. If they use someone else, they're paying two royalty fees. If they use her, they're skirting her tarnished image...
@HHH816 Doesn't work like that, sadly. They'd have to renegotiate, and I'm not sure if there was a iyakukin pay out from her agency to TK or not. (They paid off 1 billion odd yen to her cosmetic contracts.)
Has Emi worked since getting pregnant? I thought her oops marriage basically killed her career? It certainly killed off Okatsu's role in the Nioh story prematurely...
Won't lie, I'm kinda glad they're finally stepping back. I'm presuming much of the team that was committed to Square for Dissidia is returning for reallocation now. That management wants the remaining team to move on from the last DoA product and engine is relieving. They've been milking this...
@Mr.Wah - just to let you know, the email confirmation notice page on the Japanese site comes through in English, (the email is in Japanese, tho.)
Great work! And ty to everyone at FSD for giving us somewhere to meet. FSD, お誕生日おめでとうございます^^
Can't wait to see this engine come to DoA. It's taken them forever to upgrade from LTGL, but god does it look worth it. 1080p60 is target too, so I doubt they'll have to cut much back for it to be consistent for us. Plus we've got this and Toukiden 2 for them to mess it up with first, as...