On April 29th 2024, Kaizen Games, developers of adventure-mystery game Paradise Killer (2020), announced their second game titled Promise Mascot Agency at ID@Xbox. Announced for a release date of 2025, the game would be released in PS5/PS4, Xbox Series X/S/One, Switch, Steam Deck, and Windows according to the developer’s X post.
Promise Mascot Agency is an open world game collaborating with Ikumi Nakamura and Mai Mattori. Both creatives are a part of Unseen, an independent studio in Tokyo who recently announced their upcoming game Kemuri in The Game Awards 2023. Nakamura, before heading Unseen, was an artist at Tango Gameworks and worked on projects such as The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo. She was also concept artist on Bayonetta (2009) at PlatniumGames. According to the official Unseen site, Mattori had worked with Nakamura before as an environment artist.
The official Steam page pitches the game as an “open world mascot management crime drama”. The player focuses on Michi, a disgraced yakuza, sent to a cursed town to reform a mascot agency. His companion, dubbed “Pinky”, is a mascot. The two of them continue to recruit mascots while unraveling the conspiracy behind Michi’s dismissal to the cursed town.
Kaizen Games’ previous work Paradise Killer, despite being aesthetically different from Promise Mascot Agency, shares the same game design of a detective in an open world. With psychedelic, semi-absurdist tones, Paradise Killer was inspired by city pop, Kafka, and Spike Chunsoft’s Danganronpa (2010). The game was well received, with reviewers such as GameSpot and IGN rating it a 9/10.