About ten minutes later, while Ichin was working in the programming department, he noticed Utaha appear beside him.
Looking up at her with a smile, he asked,
"Not chatting with everyone anymore?"
Utaha sat down and took a sip of his milk tea.
"I feel like I can't stay out there any longer. Otherwise, Eriri and the others are going to become depressed over body figure issues."
She then explained everything that had just happened outside.
After listening, Ichin couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.
"Hajime is really something. She actually did that?"
He had seen that comic image online before and knew that well-endowed girls could technically do it, but he never expected to witness it happening inside the company.
Utaha laughed as well.
"Exactly. The key issue is that other people started copying her.
"If it had only been Hajime-san, it wouldn't have been a big deal. She's tall, has long legs, and an amazing figure, so everyone could more or less accept it.
"But then Nene did the exact same thing, and Eriri and the others completely lost it."
Although Hajime had a somewhat tomboyish personality, she was undeniably cute. Standing close to 170 centimeters tall and possessing one of the best figures in the company, nobody found it surprising that she could pull off something like that.
Nene, however, was a completely different story.
That was basically provoking everyone to the absolute maximum.
Turning his head toward the outside area, Ichin indeed saw the lively scene.
Nene and Eriri were standing face-to-face, seemingly debating something.
Judging by the situation, Nene clearly had the upper hand while Eriri's expression had become stiff. She was obviously losing the argument.
Shaking his head with a smile, Ichin said,
"Later, tell them to tone it down a little. It's still working hours."
Utaha nodded.
"Don't worry. Hazuki and Rin are there. It won't go on for much longer."
After spending some time with Ichin, the joking and teasing eventually came to an end. Everyone returned to their workstations to continue working.
Utaha and Yukino headed back upstairs to the office, one focusing on studying while the other resumed writing.
As the end of the workday approached, the promotional gameplay showcase video for Bloodborne, which Ichin had previously arranged, was finally completed.
The video was three minutes long and packed with content.
After receiving the file and reviewing it, Ichin approved it and instructed the operations department to upload it across all major platforms.
Half an hour after being submitted, the review process was quickly completed, and the video officially went live.
Players immediately noticed the new upload.
Bloodborne! Finally some new content!
The Lovecraftian atmosphere feels incredibly strong!
That's exactly why it's good! That's the flavor we want!
The combat animations look so cool!
Comments and bullet-screen messages exploded across various platforms as the gameplay showcase spread throughout the gaming community.
Just like all of the company's previous games, this title possessed a completely different style while still looking like a high-quality production at first glance.
Especially Bloodborne.
Its Lovecraftian influence was extremely strong.
Under Ichin's direction, many additional creatures with heavy cosmic horror themes had been added, creatures that didn't exist in the original version. The number and variety of weapons had also been expanded significantly, making gameplay much more diverse.
In just a single night, the Bloodborne showcase surpassed one million views on Bilibili alone, generating tremendous attention.
No new games had been released during the first half of the year, and the release of this Bloodborne trailer in July signaled the beginning of a major promotional campaign.
And that was exactly what happened.
Two days later, on Wednesday morning, another promotional video was released.
This time it was for an entirely new game.
The first public reveal of Phasmophobia.
The trailer was shown from a first-person perspective.
At night, the protagonist sat inside a vehicle and arrived at a house in the countryside. Three companions accompanied them.
After parking, the group opened the rear compartment of the vehicle and selected equipment such as flashlights, crucifixes, thermometers, and other tools before entering the pitch-black house together.
Holy crap, is this a ghost-hunting game?
I never expected them to make something like this.
This actually looks pretty interesting. You have to find hidden ghosts, identify their type, and then eliminate them.
There's more than that. It even has voice input support. That's going to be amazing in multiplayer!
Compared to Bloodborne's Lovecraftian horror, Phasmophobia was a pure supernatural horror game focused on ghost hunting.
Simply hunting ghosts wasn't the main attraction.
The key feature was that it supported multiplayer and included voice recognition functionality.
In the trailer, when a player shouted "Fuck you!" at the ghost, a piercing scream suddenly erupted, accompanied by violent shaking throughout the room.
That level of interaction was something ordinary horror games could rarely provide.
It genuinely felt as though players were communicating directly with supernatural entities.
At the end of the trailer, Phasmophobia's release date was revealed.
September.
Only two months away.
The announcement immediately excited countless horror game enthusiasts, many of whom began contacting friends and fellow gamers to arrange multiplayer sessions for launch day.
It wasn't only regular players who were interested.
Many content creators and streamers immediately recognized the game's streaming potential and began pre-ordering Phasmophobia on Steam.
At only 9.99 USD, it wasn't expensive.
It offered multiplayer gameplay, direct verbal interaction with ghosts, and impressive graphics.
More importantly, considering the company's track record, nobody was particularly worried about quality.
There was simply no way the game would turn out bad.
As a result, shortly after work began that morning, Ichin could already see pre-order numbers steadily climbing.
As for Bloodborne, although its Steam page had already gone live, pre-orders had not yet opened, nor had the final price been announced.
Looking at the backend statistics, Ichin smiled.
"It looks like people are paying quite a bit of attention to horror games."
Umiko, who was also in the office, smiled.
"Well, the game's core concept is pretty interesting. We even showcased that voice interaction feature in the trailer, so of course people are interested.
"It's just a shame that releasing this game on console platforms isn't particularly easy."
The Nintendo Switch was out of the question, and Xbox and PlayStation presented their own challenges.
Looking at things now, delaying the console versions had definitely been the right decision. It provided the team with significantly more time for development and optimization.
After finishing the discussion about Phasmophobia, Ichin looked toward Umiko with a smile.
Umiko, how's Nene's preparation going? She's going to be presenting this afternoon."
In response, Umiko displayed a confident smile.
"Don't worry. She's been fully prepared for a long time."
...
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