A Glimpse Into Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]

Founded in 1995, French Bread is the game development studio behind anime fighting games such as Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax, Melty Blood, and Under Night In-Birth. They were present at EVO 2023 with Arc System Works, where they announced that they're collaborating to make a sequel to their cult hit Under Night: Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]. Although little is presently known about the highly requested sequel, ANN sat down with some key members of French Bread at EVO to talk about the sequel to the beloved fighting game.

The following interview was conducted at EVO 2023, with the indispensable help of translator Yuji Moriya (who was cosplaying as Happy Chaos during the interview).

Anime News Network: So, tell me about yourselves.

Kamone SERIZAWA: So, I am the general director and battle director for UNI [Under Night In-Birth] and French Bread, Kamone Serizawa. Nice to meet you.

Seiichi Yoshihara: Seiichi Yoshihara from French Bread, and I am the lead graphics designer for Under Night.

So what inspired you to come back to Under Night?

SERIZAWA: I think the biggest reason was to really give back to the Under Night community and the fans who have really loved and played the game.

The new game has a distinct visual style. What can you tell me about the visual style of this game?

YOSHIHARA: I was leading the graphics for the character select screen, and there's a lot of different concepts that went into that and sort of stage design as well. So the concept was for any player, whether they're new players to the franchise or existing players that were already familiar, we wanted them to get a very clear idea of what the character does and what their fighting style will be like just from looking at the character's select image.

What things can old fans see returning to the series?

SERIZAWA: So there's a lot of things that I think, you know, the old players will be—they'll feel right at home with the game, but there's also a lot of new things that they'll discover in the game.

What are some of those new things that they can discover?

SERIZAWA: So definitely some new things. There are new moves to look at and consider and some new system mechanics that go with Discover. But we also implemented many changes based on the player feedback from previous games.

What can you tell me about how player feedback has affected this game?

SERIZAWA: So, I think player feedback is critical. And there were many things that players wished had happened in the previous game, so we implemented many of those things. And a lot of these changes that they requested—the elements missing from the previous games were causing the game to be tough to recommend to their friends or players of other games. So we made a lot of changes to make it so that it's a little bit easier to understand for players, and more fun and enjoyable and easy to get into the game.

So do you think this will be a good game for new UNI players to jump into the series with?

SERIZAWA: Yes, of course. I think this is a perfect game to get into if you're a new player. It's a great place to start.

Do you think French Bread fans who have not already played UNI will also enjoy this game?

SERIZAWA: Yea, that's definitely our plan. To make sure that those fans can also enjoy a game.

Are there any other new elements players can look forward to?

SERIZAWA: So overall, we can say that the music has all changed, so you can look forward to the new soundtrack. The composer, Raito, worked on the soundtrack.

That's excellent to hear—Under Night has always had a lot of visual and musical flair. It sounds like it's going to continue doing that in this game as well?

SERIZAWA: Yea, we're really excited about the music. It's excellent sounding; really, really great. I hope everybody's excited about it!

What do you think are the coolest new features of this game—or the coolest features in general?

SERIZAWA: So I think one of the main draws of playing Under Night as a fighting game is the GRD system, the GRD gauge. And so that has a little bit of a rework on it, and I think it's going to be a great mechanic to get into, and we're excited to showcase it.

On that note, is there anything else that you would like to say about this game?

SERIZAWA: So, for those of you who've seen the promotional video, we may or may not have teased that there may or may not be a new character coming. We're going to keep it vague there, but yeah. And we worked hard on it for a very long time. It's been a long time coming to release the new game. We're really excited about the release, and I hope everybody is looking forward to it.

YOSHIHARA: The visual aspect is really exciting for me. The overall user interface has been revamped, making it easy to see and look at. That much more enjoyable because of it.