After 19 years working in Arc System Works, BlazBlue creator Toshimichi Mori has left the company.

Toshimichi Mori mentioned this on his Twitter account, making it official. Prior to this, Mori’s name was removed from the Arc System Works Board of Directors, making many BlazBlue and anime fighting game fans speculate on whether he is leaving the company or not.

Here’s the full translation:

“I have something to report to all of the users. I, Toshimichi Mori, have left Arc System works, the company I worked at for many years.

I first joined Arc System works after working on Guilty Gear X as an employee of PicPac, and I cherish many of the experiences I have had during my 20 years there, whether it was working for various fighting game titles, developing my own title BlazBlue, or connecting with many of our users.

I have nothing but gratitude towards the staff of Arc System Works and others who have worked with me, as well as all the users who supported us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I will depart from Arc System Works. This may cause some feelings of anxiety, especially among fans of the BlazBlue series. For this, I sincerely apologize.

At the moment I’m thinking of creating and delivering a game for the users in some way, and am going to focus my strength on that endeavour. Your support would be much appreciated.”

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— ?P (@zatuyoP) September 25, 2022

The future of BlazBlue and its competitive fighting game momentum may be put into question; there hasn’t been a mainline BlazBlue game since BlazBlue: Central Fiction, and that was back in 2015. Though to be frank, the BlazBlue series was created back in 2008 by Arc System Works because during a long stretch of time, the company did not have the rights to Guilty Gear as it was under Sega/Sammy back then.

For a stand-in fighting game meant to replace Guilty Gear, it did stay relevant for a very long while and featured a ton of fan-favourite characters and anime tropes.