During Gift Pokémon aired this week, Pokémon Company has announced the remakes of the Nintendo DS games, Diamond and Pearl Pokémon. While Game Freak normally deals with such games, right now, it is busy with the prequel to the open world. Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which will be released next year.
This leaves the release Shiny Pokémon Diamond and Shiny Pearl in 2021 in the hands of a Japanese studio called ILCA. Junichi Masuda of Game Freak will oversee the project as a director, along with Yuichi Ueda of ILCA. If you’re unfamiliar with this studio, here’s a quick rundown:
Who is ILCA?
ILCA, Inc. is a Japanese studio based in Tokyo, with other offices located in Shinjuku, Nagoya and Kyoto. It was established on October 1, 2010 as a CG-based video production company focused on animation, film and television, and eventually added video game development to the list. As of December 1, 2020, it has 288 employees.
What does the ILCA logo look like?
Here it is in all its splendor (without those wonderful walls):
So who is responsible?
ILCA is led by CEO Takuya Iwasaki and director Satoshi Takamori.
What does ILCA mean?
According to the company’s website, ILCA is called “I Love Computer Art.”
“I LOVE COMPUTER ART”
Has the studio ever worked on a Pokémon project?
Yes – before Diamond and Pearl rebuilt, he was responsible for the cloud-based storage application, Pokémon HOME.
What other games has it worked on?
As mentioned earlier, ILCA is a support studio. As a result, it has worked on all sorts of games, including regular ones, augmented reality titles, virtual reality games, and various other things, including a Domino pizza app with Hatsune Miku.
Some of the more serious projects he is assisted with include Yakuza 0, Dragon Quest XI, NieR: Automata, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 and more recently Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.
Want to know more about ILCA?
Sure, go to the company’s official website – it really hires! There is also official Twitter and Facebook pages.
So, here’s your course in ILCA – the team behind Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Do you think they have what it takes to recreate Generation IV Pokémon games? Share your thoughts below.