After GARO's game sales made a small breakthrough and reached 350,000 copies, Ichin announced the good news on the official accounts of all platforms. At the same time, he also revealed that GARO would be getting new content in the future—namely, a PvP combat mode.
As soon as this news dropped, players exploded with excitement.
After all, games based on tokusatsu series had traditionally included versus modes, and games featuring Riders or Ultraman were often primarily focused on fighting mechanics.
Ultraman Fighting Evolution had, even after all these years, remained the ceiling of Ultraman games in Ichin's mind. It was just a pity that there had never been a follow-up.
Now that GARO was also getting a versus mode, players naturally became extremely excited. With such a great action system and impactful combat feel, not making a PvP mode would have been a real waste.
Aside from the GARO announcement, Ichin also revealed his company's new game, Tales of Berseria. During the June E3 period, it would finally make a long-awaited appearance alongside Nintendo's Direct, revealing some new content.
Moreover, in addition to hands-on demos at the exhibition venue, after the E3 Direct, a playable demo would be released on all platforms, allowing players to freely experience about an hour of gameplay.
This immediately made many players—who hadn't had any new games to play lately—start looking forward to E3.
Finally, a demo is coming!
An action system developed in cooperation with Capcom—this definitely needs to be played properly when it's out!
But… isn't one hour of gameplay a bit short?
Although quite a few players felt that an hour was short, the playtime was actually about right. And even after finishing the demo's story content, players could still choose to explore within the limited map area and fight roaming monsters in the field. The only limitations were that they couldn't level up or learn new skills.
The demo area was set in the mid-game, with characters at level 30. They had already learned quite a few skills—more than enough for players to freely experiment with different skill combinations in that area.
Although this test build was meant for players, once it was finished, the company staff themselves got hooked first.
After playing through it once and spending two days studying the system, Gokō Ruri directly cranked the demo up to the highest difficulty and began frantically testing the combo systems of each character.
It wasn't just her—Kirino was the same. If it weren't for the fact that she completed her tasks perfectly, handling employee salaries and company expense sheets without any mistakes, Ichin would have seriously considered banning her from gaming during work hours.
Thankfully, Kirino knew how to clearly separate work from leisure. She only played the game after finishing all her duties.
She and Ruri had known each other for years and had always competed in various fighting and action games.
Setting aside traditional fighting games, when it came to action games like Devil May Cry, the competition was all about who could speedrun on the highest difficulty and achieve the best rank.
Kirino's skill level was quite solid, but compared to Ruri, she still lost more often than she won.
This time, however, the competitive spirit between the two was rekindled after a long while.
When Ichin heard about it, he came over to join the fun and take a look.
Seeing the two of them seated in front of adjacent monitors, both with Nintendo Switches connected, Ichin asked Yagami Kou beside him, "How are these two planning to compete?"
Yagami Kou replied with a smile, "Isn't there a level 45 high-tier elite boss on this map? They're competing to see who can defeat the boss first, with the shortest time."
"Ahh, I see. Highest difficulty, and an elite boss that's fifteen levels higher than the characters—that really is pretty tough."
In the demo, characters couldn't level up, and the weapons available were all very ordinary—just standard weapons appropriate for the level, not any special overpowered gear.
So to beat the boss on high difficulty, it all came down to player skill and familiarity with the mechanics.
Ichin didn't oppose this kind of workplace 'slacking' competition. It was, after all, a sign of how much they loved their own game.
And from another perspective, both of them were highly skilled players. This kind of testing was also a great way for the development team to identify potential issues at high difficulty—such as monster stats, AI behavior, and so on.
The match between the two soon reached a conclusion. Ruri defeated the boss just three seconds faster than Kirino.
Both of them cleared the fight without taking any damage, and even their combo setups were almost identical. However, Ruri handled her skill transitions slightly better, securing the win in the end.
After the battle, Ruri wore a calm, composed smile. She set down her controller and looked toward Kōsaka Kirino on her right.
"I won. So tonight's dinner is on you—and that includes Hinata's and Tamaki's too."
"Hmph, fine, you win this time. I'll pay, I'll pay. It's mostly for Hinata and Tamaki anyway—you're just tagging along," Kirino replied.
She shot Ruri a glare, stood up with her controller, shared a few thoughts about the boss fight with the programmers who were recording notes nearby, and then returned to the finance office to continue working.
Well, 'continue working' was a bit of an exaggeration—she was really just reviewing the spreadsheets prepared by her subordinates. All the work that actually required her personal attention had already been finished over the past two days.
After Kōsaka Kirino left, Gokō Ruri stayed behind to discuss possible AI improvements with the programming team.
In these areas, she was noticeably more perceptive and professional than Kirino.
Ichin listened in as well, occasionally offering his own thoughts. The combat balance at the highest difficulty indeed still needed further optimization.
As E3 drew closer, online coverage and discussions about the event gradually increased.
Ichin didn't really pay much attention to the online reports. After all, his company only had one game this time, and it was being featured in Nintendo's presentation. There was no need for him to worry about all the procedures—he just needed to finish the game's PV, prepare the demo, and send everything to Nintendo.
That afternoon—Saturday, one day before E3 officially opened—Ichin had originally planned to stay home and grind ranked matches in Apex. Instead, he was dragged out by Utaha and Yukino to a furniture mall to pick out furniture.
The renovation was progressing smoothly, and several bedrooms had been completed first. Furniture could now start being moved in.
After driving to the furniture mall, the first things on their list were, naturally, beds, desks, and wardrobes for the bedrooms.
Utaha had already memorized all the measurements. Now they just needed to choose styles they liked that fit those dimensions.
When they arrived at a branded furniture store, Utaha grabbed Ichin with one hand and Yukino with the other, enthusiastically pulling them inside. Her target was the large bed placed in the most eye-catching position in the store.
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