Katsura Hashino
Katsura Hashino (Japanese: 橋野 桂, Hepburn: Hashino Katsura) is a Japanese video game director and producer, best known for working on the Persona role-playing game series by Atlus. From 2006 to 2016, Hashino served as director of P-Studio, an internal team at Atlus that developed the Persona series. Following the release of Persona 5 (2016), Hashino departed P-Studio to establish Studio Zero, another development team at Atlus focused on the creation of a new IP.
Katsura Hashino | |
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橋野 桂 | |
Nationality | Japanese |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1994–present |
Employer | Atlus |
Notable work | Megami Tensei series Persona series |
Title | Founder, Studio Zero |
Career
Hashino made his directorial debut with Maken X (1999).[1] He has since directed or produced several games in the Megami Tensei and Persona series.[2] In addition to Persona, Hashino directed and produced on Catherine (2011).[3] Hashino formed a new internal division at Atlus in 2017 called Studio Zero, with their first release being a port of Catherine with additional content, Catherine: Full Body (2019). The studio's first original game is the fantasy role-playing Metaphor: ReFantazio (2024).[4][5]
Style and Influences
Hashino aims to make games with messages that people can take into real life, wanting players to feel more than simply beating a game upon completion. He is influenced by novelists and authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Seishi Yokomizo, Go Nagai, Rumiko Takahashi. As well as filmmakers such as Yukihiko Tsutsumi, David Lynch, and B-Movies. He has gone on record stating that the first game he was ever truly invested in was the first Dragon Quest from 1986. Hashino has said that playing Shin Megami Tensei showed him what video games can do better than other mediums, feeling that it made him feel responsible for how characters stories played out.
Works
References
- "橋野 桂 [プロデューサー&ゲームディレクター] | スタッフ Voice". 2015-05-30. Archived from the original on 2015-05-30. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
- "Precious Moments, Hype and High School: A Conversation with 'Persona 5' Director Katsura Hashino". Waypoint. 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
- "Catherine is twenty-hours long, has multiple endings - Gematsu". Gematsu. 2010-08-27. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
- "Longtime Persona director hands off series after more than a decade". Polygon. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
- Vitale, Adam. "Atlus reveals Metaphor: ReFantazio for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, set to launch in 2024". RPG Site. Retrieved 11 June 2023.