[thebigR]

Heavy ESL warning.
Why Wanted: Dead failed and Shenmue 4 isn't happening:

Right before the global pandemic quarantine, Sergei Kolobashkin came to Soleil. DDM Agency recommended Soleil to 110i because the first developer abandoned the project for political reasons. Sergei wanted to set the game in Hong Kong, and the studio from Germany was being acquired by Tencent. Tencent didn't want the game to be set in Hong Kong. Yoshi Okamoto, the future producer of Wanted: Dead, warned Sergei that there might be a geopolitical risk, but Sergei liked the idea that the game could be very controversial. Originally, the game was supposed to be a 3rd person shooter like Spec Ops The Line, but Sergei wanted to take it in another direction.

Soleil was working on a concept for a game called Ninja Zero with similar mechanics to Ninja Gaiden, but the ninja would wield multiple guns. In creative writing, it was decided to make the game more horizontal. The original concept submitted to Soleil with creative changes was a deconstruction of the action games genre and an antithesis to modern gaming that holds the player's hand. From the first day of inception, Wanted: Dead was a hardcore PS2 game made with modern technology. The game was satirical in nature and designed to be a postmodern representation of hero worship action games. The original story didn't change much. Gunsmith was not a part of the story until Stefanie Joosten joined 110i, and Gunsmith was created as a comedy character that would've been playable at some point.

Itagaki Tomonobu was supposed to produce the combat system but his heavy drinking problem prevented his involvement. He would show up for meetings with 110i representatives once in a while, but it was very unprofessional. Matsui would be working full time on two jobs.We openly protested Joosten's involvement with the game because she has a very bad reputation among development in Japan. Sergei was adamant that she carries the cutscenes for the game. She would be present on all calls with the studio and would work at night when mocap was happening in Japan. She couldn't fly because the borders were closed. She gained a lot of respect from the team for long working hours but it was not a healthy vibe with her. She claimed to have perfect Japanese but sometimes she didn't understand basic things.

We didn't know that Tencent would be acquiring Soleil. Management did not tell us anything. This doomed the game. There was danger of the game being canceled by 110i when they learned of the problems with Tencent. Tencent didn't like the game and started pulling key people from the project and assigning them to other projects. Sergei would arrive in Japan in a few months to determine if the game was up to standards. It was not. What 110i didn't know is that Soleil subcontracted the development to Blast Edge. It was not a good studio for such a project. Under unknown reasons Soleil and 110i decided to start working on Vengeance is Mine.

What was interesting is that Sergei was no longer the CEO of 110i but only a creative director. What happened earlier is Joosten was working with a woman named Presley recording lines for the game in Germany at a studio where apparently Presley was attacked. Not much is known about this shameful incident but Joosten was to be fired from all 110i projects and Sergei stepped in. As a result Joosten stayed but Sergei got demoted as a punishment and he lost control over 110i. Presley left soon after.

110i was hit with all sorts of bad misfortunes. The Russian/Ukraine war started and 110i was affected heavily. Previously announced racer Red Goes Faster was in early development with Zordix and because 110i has a lot of Russians the game was shelved. 110i closed a major deal with Innovaud and it was published on their internet site and the money was supposed to be used to fund Shenmue Zero a prequel game but Innovaud withdrew funding and doomed the project. A DLC was in talks to bring Shenmue and Wanted: Dead together somehow. Another source of money also abandoned 110i due to their nationality which doomed Shenmue 4. 110i wanted to announce the collaboration with Yu Suzuki but it all failed because of the war.

In the meantime development of Wanted: Dead was picking up but it wasn't up to 110i standards. The game released deviated far from the original vision. A lot of cut content made the story hard to understand. Many lines were recorded but never used in the game. One example is the training area where Stone and Gunsmith would be talking to each other and Gunsmith was making fun of Stone but it was all lost in translation and developers didn't understand the jokes. They would not put jokes into the game they didn't understand. Gunsmith narrated training and shooting range and none came to life. The final level of the game was not supposed to be in the streets. The final showdown was supposed to take place on bullet train. It was cut very early in development. The guns were supposed to work differently. Stone was supposed to be throwing away guns picked up on the map like in Mirror's Edge. The game originally was faster and more dynamic. Many systems that were prototyped didn't work because Blast Edge didn't understand them. It was a fighting game at its core hence guard cancel and such systems. The skill tree was more basic.

One of the challenges I remember is anime in the club. The team couldn't understand what Sergei wanted and struggled to realize his vision. In the end Sergei spliced footage of anime and a film to explain what he wanted. Space Runaway was developed by PIXEL. They loved working on it.

Originally Wanted: Dead was supposed to be released after Tokyo Game Show but the game was far from ready. 110i shareholders were pushing heavily for a November release date. The only reason the game didn't ship is because of God of War. At the same time 110i started negotiating a publishing deal in Japan. The game is still not officially available in Japan. One of the rare exceptions when a Japanese developer doesn't have a game in his homeland. At that time Sergei was no longer involved in business activities and Anton was the acting CEO negotiating the deal. Sergei came from games and he understood the Japanese culture very well and he was very well connected but Anton was not. He made a lot of mistakes and was generally not open to receiving advice. In the end, his actions killed the game in Japan. It was malpractice on all fronts.

110i had a very good presentation at Tokyo Game Show but a studio I cannot name tried to sabotage the showing. They asked the committee to remove all 110i presence from the show. If you look back at Tokyo Game Show 2022, it was all 110i, Tecmo, and Capcom. They are all friends. Sergei is big friends with these people but one studio I cannot name was against 110i primarily because of Joosten's involvement and we were all surprised. Wanted: Dead was not a part of the online show because of this studio's pleas. At that time 110i worked with a very bad PR firm also recommended by DDM. The PR firm sabotaged the show and embarrassed 110i in front of the whole world by giving IGN a very early cut of the game's demo with debug menus and bad gameplay footage. The vibe was wrong. Everyone acted very strange at Tokyo Game Show. Joosten would demand her parents to accompany her to business meetings and design meetings. It was unacceptable but Sergei was adamant.

When we learned that Wanted: Dead would launch against Hogwarts and Atomic Heart we tried to warn 110i, but the shareholders did not want to move the date. They genuinely thought the game stood a chance against Hogwarts. Earlier Soleil worked on a Valkyrie game with Square Enix and its launch was a disaster. We tried to warn them but they didn't listen. When the game launched to poor reviews 110i decided to terminate Vengeance is Mine and finish it with another studio. It created a big conflict. Okamoto was fired from Soleil.Soleil didn't work on Wanted: Dead a single day after launch. It's a studio from Poland that makes all the patches and continues to work on the game. Sergei departed 110i with Vengeance is Mine that is now in development elsewhere. If not for Tencent everything would've turned out differently.

Tencent acquiring Soleil was a big shock to Wanted: Dead and the game was supposed to be so much better. It was like a true Ninja Gaiden spiritual successor but it never came to be. The creative vision for Wanted: Dead is very strong and everyone believed in it and the competition was very afraid of what this game was supposed to be.

Well the post is deleted but everything in the OP is right above.