Tuesday, 3 December 2001.
Inside ZAGE Tower, Zaboru sat comfortably behind his computer while reviewing one development report after another. The year was nearly over, and for the first time in months, the massive ZEPS 4 project was beginning to feel less like an endless mountain of work and more like something that was actually approaching completion.
Most of the major launch projects had already entered their final development phases.
Zaboru scrolled through the newest internal progress summary and smiled slightly. "Not bad…"
That was honestly an understatement.
ZAGE's developers had once again proven why Zaboru trusted them with increasingly ridiculous projects. By this point, every major ZAGE development team across the world had shifted its primary focus toward ZEPS 4, although teams still continued finishing whatever ongoing ZEPS 3, PC, arcade, ZGBA, online, or other projects had already entered production beforehand. The Japanese teams—Team IZAN, Team NIWA, Team NOVA, Team KODO, Team FUMA, and Team NEXUS—were all preparing themselves for ZEPS 4 development while completing their remaining commitments. The same was happening in the United States with Team Tempest, Team Enigma, Team Blaze, Team Frost, and Team NEXUS, while Team Dynasty in Korea and Team OMNI in London had also begun directing most of their future planning toward the new console. Their individual specialties still mattered, but from this point onward, nearly every major ZAGE team was contributing to the ZEPS 4 era in one form or another.
The scale would have terrified most publishers if they know.
For ZAGE, it had almost become normal.
That did not mean development was easy. ZEPS 4 games were considerably more complicated than anything ZAGE had produced during the ZEPS 3 era. Character models contained dramatically more detail, environments were larger, physics systems were becoming more sophisticated, artificial intelligence required considerably more processing power, and online functionality was no longer something developers could simply add near the end of production. For many ZEPS 4 projects, multiplayer, downloadable content, ZAGE ID integration, voice communication, achievements, and other network features had to be considered from the earliest stages of development. Even seemingly basic areas such as animation, sound, lighting, interface design, loading systems, and asset management demanded significantly more work than before.
And now that essentially every major ZAGE development team around the world was shifting its primary attention toward ZEPS 4—aside from finishing whatever ongoing ZEPS 3, PC, arcade, ZGBA, or online projects they had already committed to—the amount of communication required inside the company had become enormous.
Yet somehow, the overall development process remained remarkably smooth.
Part of that came from ZAGE's organisational structure. Every development team received a complete project folder prepared in advance by Zaboru before full production began. These folders were not merely collections of loose ideas. They contained detailed documents covering the core game design, story direction, character concepts, gameplay systems, technical targets, level concepts, progression structure, important mechanics, visual direction, and major production priorities.
Developers were still given plenty of freedom to improve the ideas inside those documents. Zaboru never wanted ZAGE teams to become machines that simply copied his instructions exactly. If a designer discovered a better combat mechanic, an artist produced a stronger visual concept, or a programmer found a more efficient technical approach, they were encouraged to propose it.
But they were never forced to begin development with nothing except a title and a vague order to "make something good."
Zaboru considered that one of ZAGE's greatest advantages.
Everyone understood what they were building before they began building it.
That alone prevented enormous amounts of wasted development time. Entire systems did not need to be thrown away after months of production simply because executives suddenly changed their minds about what the project was supposed to become.
There was also ZAGE's unusually modern internal work structure.
Development milestones were tracked carefully. Departments communicated constantly. Producers could see which features were progressing properly and which ones were beginning to fall behind. Developers were encouraged to report blockers early instead of hiding them because they were afraid of looking incompetent.
Zaboru absolutely hated that kind of corporate culture.
If a programmer spent three weeks struggling with a technical problem while pretending everything was fine, Zaboru considered that far worse than simply admitting on the first day, I don't know how to solve this yet.
Problems were supposed to be solved, not hidden.
The infrastructure connecting ZAGE's global teams made that philosophy considerably easier.
ZAGE's internal network used Sendou Fiber, one of the fastest fibre networks available anywhere in the world that ZAGE invest in it. ZAGE Tower, ZAGE Campus, ZAGE Hub, ZAGE Base, and the company's major regional facilities were connected through extremely high-speed dedicated lines, allowing enormous development files to move between countries far more quickly than most companies could imagine in 2001.
Source code, development builds, animation files, concept art, audio recordings, technical documentation, bug reports, and even enormous game assets could be exchanged between Japan, America, Korea, and Europe without teams constantly relying on physical storage media.
For developers accustomed to the limitations of ordinary corporate networks, it was almost absurd.
Zaboru had also created an internal communication application inspired by software that would not become commonplace in his previous world until much later. Within ZAGE, employees simply treated it as another normal development tool which called Slack.
Teams could create project channels, message one another instantly, share files, tag specific developers, organise discussions by department, search old conversations, and contact specialists working in completely different countries without needing endless email chains.
A programmer from Team IZAN could encounter a rendering issue in Japan, post it inside an Unreal Engine technical channel, and potentially receive an answer from an engineer at ZAGE Campus in America minutes later. A designer from Team Dynasty in Korea could ask Team Tempest about networking behaviour, while an artist in London could immediately exchange reference material with Team KODO in Japan.
The system completely changed how ZAGE's international structure functioned.
Instead of behaving like several separate studios scattered around the world, ZAGE increasingly operated like one gigantic development environment.
Zaboru smiled whenever outsiders wondered how the company managed so many projects simultaneously.
If only they knew.
The most ridiculous advantage, however, was probably Zaboru himself.
The founder and absolute owner of ZAGE was not simply an executive who understood business.
He was also arguably the best game developer inside the entire company.
That changed everything.
Zaboru understood exactly why developers became frustrated when tools were poorly designed. He understood why programmers hated constantly changing requirements, why artists needed proper references before creating expensive assets, why level designers needed gameplay mechanics stabilised early, and why forcing developers into endless overtime usually created more mistakes than progress.
He had personally programmed games.
He had designed combat systems.
He had written stories.
He had created characters.
He had worked with hardware.
He understood networking, engines, interfaces, animation pipelines, AI systems, game balance, and production planning.
So when a developer explained that something was difficult, Zaboru actually understood what they meant.
There was no need to simplify everything into meaningless executive language.
A programmer could walk into a meeting and tell him that an animation system was creating memory fragmentation, and Zaboru could immediately start discussing possible solutions instead of staring blankly and asking whether they could simply "optimise it harder."
That alone increased ZAGE's productivity by an almost ridiculous margin.
Then there was the technology.
Unreal Engine 4 had once again transformed how quickly ZAGE could develop games. Unreal Engine itself had originally been created by ZAGE, and the company had continued developing and expanding it alongside its own hardware and software ambitions. The newest internal version being used for ZEPS 4 was dramatically more capable than the tools available during early ZEPS 3 production. Artists could construct and preview environments much faster, programmers could prototype gameplay systems without rebuilding everything from the beginning, and lighting, animation, scripting, physics, particle effects, and asset management had all become considerably more flexible.
More importantly, because ZAGE had created and owned Unreal Engine from the beginning, development teams did not need to wait for an outside company whenever they encountered an engine limitation.
If Team IZAN needed a new rendering feature, the Unreal Engine engineers could work directly with them. If Team NIWA required better tools for enormous RPG environments, those tools could be added. If Team Dynasty needed improvements for large-scale online systems, the engine itself could evolve alongside the project.
Every difficult game indirectly improved the technology used to create the next one.
And whenever a team encountered a truly difficult blocker that somehow survived all of those systems, Zaboru often became the final person they contacted.
That was where things became unfair.
With Deep Memory Dive, Zaboru could instantly retrieve decades of programming concepts, game-development practices, software architecture, optimisation techniques, and technical solutions from his previous life. He did not always know the answer immediately, but he usually knew where to search inside his own memories.
Then he could enter Emulator Mind.
Ten minutes in the real world could give him considerably more time internally to examine the problem from different perspectives. He could split his consciousness, recreate systems mentally, experiment with possible solutions, compare approaches, and return with an answer that might have taken an ordinary development team several days or weeks to discover.
Sometimes Zaboru would join a meeting where developers had been struggling with a problem for days, remain silent for several minutes while reading their documentation, and then casually say, "Okay, what if you move this system here instead?"
The room would become silent.
Someone would test it.
And irritatingly often, it worked.
Naturally, that created a running joke throughout ZAGE.
If every normal solution failed, call the boss.
His Aura of Influence quietly accelerated everything even further. Developers throughout ZAGE learned new techniques faster than outsiders expected, adapted more easily to unfamiliar technology, maintained unusually strong motivation, and often discovered improvements simply by working around other talented people affected by the same influence.
Zaboru understood exactly how absurd that combination was.
Modern management.
Extremely fast internal communication.
Sendou Fiber.
Advanced development tools.
Unreal Engine.
Complete project planning.
International cooperation.
Happy Employee
And a reincarnated company owner with supernatural memory, a mental development environment, and an aura that literally made people around him improve faster.
He leaned back in his chair after finishing another ZEPS 4 progress report and smiled to himself.
"Yeah…"
Even he had to admit it.
ZAGE's development structure was almost unfair.
But Zaboru certainly was not going to apologise for it.
He stopped typing for a moment, leaned back in his chair, and grabbed a large piece of fried chicken from the plate beside his keyboard. After taking an enormous bite, he looked again at the list of games planned around ZEPS 4's launch period.
A grin slowly appeared across his face.
These games are definitely going to shape gaming forever.
ZEPS 3 had represented technology roughly comparable to the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 generation from his previous life, although naturally ZAGE had pushed the hardware much harder than either system originally managed.
ZEPS 4 was completely different.
Rather than following the exact progression of his previous world through a separate PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and eventually PlayStation 3 generation, Zaboru had essentially compressed multiple eras into one enormous technological leap.
ZEPS 4 combined concepts, capabilities, and design philosophies equivalent to the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 generations.
That did not mean Zaboru intended to skip the games associated with the PS2, GameCube, and original Xbox era.
Quite the opposite.
Those games were still some of the strongest experiences from his previous life.
The difference was that many of them would now appear with significantly improved graphics, better loading, stronger online features, improved physics, larger environments, and whatever other enhancements made sense for ZEPS 4.
Because of that, the release order of famous games from his previous life would become increasingly different.
A title that originally appeared in 2002 might not appear until 2004.
A game originally released much later could arrive earlier if ZAGE already possessed the necessary technology and the right development team.
Others might be combined with ideas from their sequels.
Zaboru smiled and murmured, "But that's what makes it interesting, isn't it?"
He had never wanted this world to become a perfect copy of his previous life.
Sometimes he wanted to preserve a game almost exactly because the original developers had already created something excellent. There was no reason to change something merely because he possessed the ability to do so.
A good game did not always need to become radically different.
Minor balancing improvements, cleaner controls, more content, stronger technical performance, or better quality-of-life features could sometimes be enough.
Then there were games where Zaboru saw enormous unexplored potential.
Team Buddies was one obvious example.
The original concept from his previous life had been brilliant, but Zaboru had expanded its box system dramatically, introduced Unique Boxes, new Buddies, new weapons, larger maps, stronger multiplayer, deeper strategy, and far more experimentation.
Jackie Chan Stuntmaster had received similar treatment. Zaboru loved the original concept, but stronger hardware and ZAGE's resources allowed the team to create much larger stages, more elaborate action sequences, stronger martial-arts animations, mystical side and considerably more cinematic encounters.
Some games were preserved.
Some were polished.
Some were practically rebuilt.
That unpredictability was part of what Zaboru enjoyed most.
He took another bite of fried chicken while looking at the tentative ZEPS 4 launch plan.
Around ten major games were currently being prepared for the broader launch window.
Compared with ZEPS 3, which had launched with roughly thirteen notable ZAGE games, the number was actually smaller.
And Zaboru was completely comfortable with that.
ZEPS 4 games required significantly more people, time, money, testing, animation, voice work, online infrastructure, level design, and technical optimisation than ZEPS 3 projects. Releasing fifteen or twenty enormous games simultaneously would only cause the titles to compete against one another while overwhelming players.
Zaboru did not want that.
He wanted anticipation.
He wanted people to finish one game and already be excited about what came next.
During the PS2 and PS3 eras of his previous life, enormous games sometimes released so frequently that excellent titles could disappear beneath even larger releases. Zaboru remembered buying games that remained untouched for months simply because something else immediately captured his attention.
He did not want ZAGE to create that problem intentionally.
The overall number of ZAGE releases would gradually decrease as game scope increased.
Not dramatically.
ZAGE had far too many development teams for that.
But quality and proper scheduling would become increasingly important.
A huge Team IZAN game did not need to release two weeks before an equally huge Team NIWA RPG unless there was a specific reason.
Zaboru wanted each major project to have room to breathe.
The smaller titles, experimental games, arcade projects, ZGBA releases, online games, and lower-budget projects could fill the spaces between them.
That balance excited him.
Large games would create major events.
Smaller games would keep experimentation alive.
Then another idea crossed his mind.
Demakes.
Zaboru paused halfway through another bite of chicken.
"Heh…"
After ZEPS 4 launched, ZAGE could potentially create deliberately simplified versions of certain ZEPS 4 games for ZEPS 3 or even ZGBA.
Not cheap ports.
Actual reinterpretations.
A massive 3D ZEPS 4 action game could become a completely different side-scrolling ZGBA title. A detailed open-world game might become a compact top-down adventure. A complicated RPG could be redesigned with sprite graphics and simpler combat.
That would create a completely new challenge for the development teams.
Instead of asking, How do we make this game bigger?
They would ask, How do we preserve what makes this game special when the hardware is weaker?
Zaboru genuinely liked that idea.
It would also prevent older ZAGE hardware from becoming immediately irrelevant.
ZEPS 3 already had an enormous player base around the world. Not everyone would purchase ZEPS 4 immediately, especially if the new console was significantly more expensive than older hardware.
ZGBA was even more important because handheld gaming served a completely different audience.
Supporting older platforms through creative reinterpretations made much more sense than simply abandoning them overnight.
Zaboru opened a small personal document and typed:
Possible future project: ZEPS 4 demake program — ZEPS 3 / ZGBA.
He stared at it for several seconds, smiled, and saved the note.
"Later."
There were already enough projects waiting for him.
Far too many, actually.
Games.
Hardware.
AKAI.
Software.
Steam.
Online infrastructure.
Animation.
Sports.
ZEPS 4 marketing.
And eventually whatever insanity came after ZEPS 4 itself.
Yet one idea had refused to leave his mind since the beginning of December.
Zaboru slowly closed the ZEPS 4 launch document.
A completely different folder appeared on his desktop.
It was still almost empty.
Only a few notes existed inside.
Modern Japan.
Crime drama.
Yakuza families.
Street fighting.
Arcades.
Restaurants.
Bars.
Convenience stores.
Minigames.
Serious characters surrounded by occasionally ridiculous situations.
Zaboru looked at the words for several seconds.
Then he smiled.
Of all the games waiting beyond the ZEPS 4 launch lineup, this one had become strangely difficult to ignore.
The Yakuza game.
To be continued.
Please give me your power stone and if you want to support me and get minimum 50+ advance chapter and additional 1 chapter a week for 4$ considering subscribe to my patreon patreon.com/Zaborn_1997
Or buymecoffee https://buymeacoffee.com/Zaborn_1997 which same with patreon
current Patreon/buymecoffe chap 1360