Remember Scalebound? The dragon-buddy dubstep-heavy action game from PlatinumGames was introduced in 2014 as an Xbox exclusive. It starred a cocky headphone-wearing hero who ran around a scenic open world, slashing enemies with the kind of hyperactive explosiveness we’ve come to expect from the Japanese studio. That cockiness was justified too, because backing our hero up was the kind of stoney-scaled dragon you’d expect to see as a late-game boss rather than a trusty sidekick.
Scalebound was cancelled in 2017, but in a new interview with IGN Japan (translated by VGC), PlatinumGames’ heads Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya revealed that they would like to revive the game, if Microsoft are up for it.
Inaba said in the interview that ““Kamiya has always wanted to do Scalebound. So we’d like to have a proper discussion with Microsoft.”
Kamiya, who was directing Scalebound, added: “We did a lot of work on it, and it’s no use Microsoft keeping the game in its current form, so we’d like to do something about it. Phil! Let’s do it together!”
Looking back on Scalebound, it puts into perspective how much has changed since 2017. Back then, Microsoft was still trying to claw its way back into the console war by pushing the Xbox One as a standalone platform with exclusive games to rival the PS4 roster. Today, ‘Xbox exclusive’ pretty much means ‘… and PC too’, and if it’s a first-party game, which Scalebound would be, then we could expect it as a Day One release on PC Game Pass.
Of course, that’s all hypothetical for now, as Microsoft is yet to respond to Kamiya’s callout. If Scalebound did make a comeback, I hope for the good of humanity that tastes it’d drop that ear-fracking combat music. We’re in the 2020s now, people! It’s time to leave all that post-Skrillex screechstep behind…