Tokyo Game Show 2011 has come and gone. If you’ve been following this website on Facebook or Twitter you’ll likely be aware of the latest details surrounding Project Draco, the upcoming Kinect title from Panzer Dragoon creator Yukio Futatsugi. Project Draco is a rail shooter, with RPG elements where you raise your dragon virtual pet style. It has a control scheme similar to Child of Eden. The game is planned for release in 2012 on Xbox Live Arcade and is exclusive to Kinect (no controller support). There will also be a three player online co-op mode over Xbox Live.
Project Draco is more colourful than the bleak, but much loved, world of Panzer Dragoon. It looks stunning. Futatsugi has stressed that it is not a Panzer Dragoon game, going as far to make some comparisons while at the same time pointing out key differences between the games. In a 1up.com article he says:
In the Panzer Dragoon series if you pressed the left or right trigger buttons, you could face anywhere you wanted. We cut that feature specifically because it doesn’t work on Kinect.
It’s good to know that Grounding aren’t going to shoehorn all of Panzer Dragoon’s features into Project Draco, as some are unlikely to work well with the Kinect interface. Furthermore, Futatsugi was asked whether he would want to make Project Draco a Panzer Dragoon game at all:
Not really. I guess because all the things that I wanted to do with Panzer I did already. So I’m not really fixated on that game so much anymore. If for example, I was tasked with a different job of making a Panzer Dragoon sequel, then I probably wouldn’t even do it on Kinect. So that I would enjoy doing on its own, but it’s a different thing.
So he hasn’t ruled out making a new Panzer Dragoon game completely…
More details (including screenshots) of Project Draco can be found in the following articles:
- Gaming Bolt: Kinect Project Draco Screenshots Look Stunning
- Kotaku: This Isn’t Your Father’s Panzer Dragoon
- 1up.com: Project Draco Looks a Lot like “Panzer Dragoon Kinect”
- 1up.com: Why Project Draco Doesn’t Support the Default 360 Controller
- GamePro: The Game That Will Push Me To Finally Buy A Kinect: Project Draco
- Joystiq: Project Draco preview: Fly a fantasy
- VG24/7: Kinect’s Panzer Dragoon – TGS shows off Project Draco
- Inside Kinect: Project Draco Revealed - Screens and Gameplay Details
- NeoGAF Forums: Project Draco unveiled and detailed: Kinect-only Panzer Dragoon successor on XBLA