•A new game from Kotaro Uchikoshi, the creator of the Zero Escape trilogy and The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, has been cancelled — leaving his fledgling studio Crash Keys with an uncertain future.
According to a report by Gamer24h for Eurogamer, Uchikoshi first became beloved after writing and directing the Zero Escape trilogy, a cult classic series of locked-room puzzlers originally released on Nintendo DS before being ported to modern platforms. The self-proclaimed “Deadass Undirected Director” recently took to social media both to announce his new studio and ask for help.
“Honestly, I’m not doing well at all… Why, you ask…? Because the game our whole team had poured our hearts and souls into for about a year and a half was suddenly canceled,” he tweeted earlier today. “I mean, I lost my job overnight. Talk about a bolt from the blue.”
Crash Keys opened its doors in March 2025, with Uchikoshi planning to formally reveal the company and its first game sometime next year. But that plan was derailed by what he described as a “bolt from the blue” incident, forcing him to go public earlier than expected.
The studio is now seeking anyone interested in working with it or investing in its projects. In his characteristic off-key humour, Uchikoshi warned the developer might struggle to stay afloat without some form of investment.
Please give us some work! At this rate, our company might literally crash into a million pieces. My team and I may be forced to survive on nothing but cicada shells collected from a run-down park. So please, help us! You’re our only hope!
Kotaro Uchikoshi
The Crash Keys website currently lists just two other employees: writer Akira Mine, who has credits on Hundred Line and the upcoming Danganronpa 2×2, and Muri Sasaki, who contributed to both Zero Escape and AI: The Somnium Files.
As some players have noted, Crash Keys is also the name of a very important organisation in the Zero Escape trilogy — an observation that raised eyebrows among fans of the series online.
After wrapping up work on the Zero Escape series, Uchikoshi co-founded another development company, TooKyo 게임, alongside Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka. The pair released The Hundred Line last year, a strategy game widely praised but overlooked. It remains unclear whether Uchikoshi is still involved with TooKyo 게임.
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