NintendObs Asks: Felix 'Lachsen' Klein on the intricacies of CrossCode.
"I believe it's a stretch to really put any 'fault' towards the publisher in this situation." A NintendObs Dailies exclusive interview.
Luther from NintendObs Dailies:
The first question goes straight into spoiler territory. Did you have to include the full story when you pitched the game to publishers? Because if so, I really want to know how some of these interactions went down when mentioning the revelations following the fight against Shizuka. I assume due to non-disclosure agreements you probably cannot go into details, but I would love to hear how some of the publishers and eventually Deck13 Interactive reacted to a story where the triggering event was essentially caused… by a publisher.
Lachsen from Radical Fish Games:
At the time we signed the contract with our publisher this scene actually hadn't been written yet, though the plot direction had been planned. Frankly, our publisher didn't mind too much in which direction the plot was heading and up to this day, they never complained about the story content. And to be fair, I think Instatainment isn't really portrayed as an antagonist. It's true that their rejection of Satoshi's proposal sort of led them down on that challenging path, but that was also because Satoshi and the others were stubborn enough to search help from Sidwell, which they knew was a risky direction — and also the reason why Sergey did not go along. So I believe it's a stretch to really put any "fault" towards the publisher in this situation. They simply acted in their best interest and with their rejection of the proposal no one was hurt directly.