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    Megami Tensei author says devs must take inspiration from other media if they want to invent new gameplay systems

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    Megami Tensei author says devs must take inspiration from other media if they want to invent new gameplay systems

    The author of the books that inspired the Shin Megami Tensei series says developers should take inspiration from other media, not just games.

    Aya Nishitani wrote a trilogy of books in the mid 1980s called Digital Devil Story. These books – especially the first title, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei – became popular in Japan, and led to the Shin Megami Tensei series of video games (including its spin-offs like the Persona series).

    Earlier this week (as spotted by Automaton) Nishitani replied to a user on X who suggested that modern video games aren’t as interested because they seem to be based on other games, whereas developers in the ’80s and ’90s tended to take inspiration from movies or music.

    Nishitani agreed, saying he believes that in order to evolve the medium of video games and invent new gameplay mechanics, developers should consider drawing inspiration from other sources, rather than other video games.

    “Developers of the past created games inspired by movies and music,” he said (via machine translation), “but today’s developers create games inspired by games. There’s a belief among some that this approach won’t lead to interesting games, but I think that’s an opinion worth listening to.

    “I also think the same – if you are inspired by a different medium, new game systems can be created, but if you are inspired by a great game, you tend to end up creating the same system.”

    He later clarified: “The first Megami Tensei can be said to be a game inspired by novels. Also, I think the camera angles in very early polygonal games like Alone in the Dark were influenced by movies. What I’m talking about is mostly the system itself, not the surface level story or graphics.”

    A number of other video games have been directly based on novels over the years, including The Witcher, Metro 2033 and Ubisoft‘s Tom Clancy series. Others have taken inspiration from them – BioShock is said to be heavily influenced by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.