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Top-down shooter Raiden V has released in Japan for Xbox One and the development team have confirmed that the game will be breaking out of that territory and heading to North America and Europe.

In an interview with Inside Games (Japanese), MOSS CEO Toshinobu Komazawa stated:-

"Raiden is always made for worldwide, is an important thing because this franchise is very popular in the west and Asia. Raiden IV was sold well digitally there. With this in mind, we needed characters who can do serious acting as well. That's why we asked Tsukasa Kotobuki to design them. We are releasing Raiden V in North America and Europe in the near future. There are many enthusiastic shooters overseas. We have more massages from them like "When's the western version?" or "Why Xbox One?!" via e-mail and SNS than Japanese gamers'. Very excited messages."

Also, the game is an Xbox One exclusive, in part thanks to the way in which it uses Microsoft's cloud architecture. The game utilizes a "Cheer" system, which allows for Cheers to be sent to people who do things well when playing online. So, if you beat a boss within 20 seconds for example, you might be sent some Cheers, which raises a meter in game that allows you to use a Cheer Attack. There's encouragement for sending Cheers too, as that also fills the meter.

Komazawa also said he believes Microsoft Japan are in the market for more shooters:-

"Of course, we considered every platform but Xbox One's exceptionally good features like the cloud have high affinity for what we wanted to do with Raiden V. That's the reason. Also, there was a strong demand from Microsoft Japan for shmups. I felt the feeling that they want to keep appealing this genre on Xbox to shmups fans."

We'll keep an eye open for the release date for the US/European edition of Raiden V.

Thanks to lifelower for the news tip and translation.

[source inside-games.jp]