By Sagar V. Mankar 
Kenji Ozawa, co-director of Visions of Mana, has officially established a new game development company called Studio Sasanqua.
While the studio was formally founded in January 2025, Ozawa only publicly announced its creation on March 3, alongside launching the studio’s official website.
This development comes after Ozawa’s departure from NetEase-owned Ouka Studio in October 2024. According to Bloomberg, NetEase had been cutting jobs at Ouka Studio and was planning to shut it down entirely, just days after the release of Visions of Mana, which was published by Square Enix.
In a recent interview with AUTOMATON, Ozawa shared that his decision to start his own studio stemmed from growing concerns about the current state of the gaming industry. He specifically pointed to a troubling pattern he’s witnessed where management makes high-level decisions but fails to take responsibility when things go wrong.
“Management needs to protect creators,” Ozawa explained, highlighting how developers often bear the consequences of poor management decisions despite having little input in company-wide decision-making. This frequently results in layoffs that disproportionately affect the creative teams rather than the executives who made the problematic decisions.
Driven by these observations and his own experiences, Ozawa designed Studio Sasanqua with a unique approach that “integrates management and development functions“—areas that are traditionally kept separate in larger gaming companies. This structure aims to create a more supportive environment for developers and ensure accountability at the leadership level.
The new studio appears to be self-funded by Ozawa, who stated that he is “fully prepared to assume responsibility” if projects fail due to management decisions.
Before founding Sasanqua, Ozawa built his reputation as a game producer at Bandai Namco Entertainment before joining Ouka Studios in 2019, where he co-directed Visions of Mana.
For its initial phase, Studio Sasanqua plans to focus on smaller projects developed using Unreal Engine. Ozawa envisions eventually transitioning to creating original PC and console games as the studio grows.