Layton Creators Working on New Ace Attorney?

Level 5, the studio behind Professor Layton, may have something to do with the next Ace Attorney title.

The Professor Layton and Ace Attorney games have more than a few things in common. They’re largely story-driven games with an emphasis on logic and triumphing through puzzle-solving skills rather than accuracy and twitch aiming, for one, and they both have devoted cult followings. Now, if a tweet from a designer at Layton creator Level 5 is any indication, there might be something interesting going on behind the scenes.

A Tweet from Level-5’s Jiro Ishii to Square Enix’s Jin Fujisawa (with whom he had apparently dined the night before) reads: “Huh? Oh, Gyakuten XX. I’m making it, with Mr. Takumi!” according to a translation by Andriasang.

Gyakuten, of course, refers to what we call Ace Attorney here in the West. Gyakuten Saiban (literally “Turnabout Court”) is the main Ace Attorney series, whereas Gyakuten Kenji (“Turnabout Prosecutor”) is Ace Attorney Investigations. The Mr. Takumi referenced is almost certainly Gyakuten Saiban series creator Shu Takumi.

It is currently unknown whether the game in question is the Capcom-Level 5 teamup mentioned last week by Keiji Inafune, or if this is the newly-announced Ace Attorney Investigations 2.

All I know is that now I’m envisioning a Phoenix Wright/Professor Layton crossover, and I think we can all agree that it would be the best game of the past five years if they did that.

(Andriasang, via Eurogamer)