After 11 years of development and enough delays that almost rivaled Duke Nukem Forever as the game that took the longest to be released,Lost Soul Aside, a game which started as a passion project by one person, is now finally done.
Ultizero Games announced today on WeChat (via Twitter) that theirFinal Fantasy-inspired action RPG has officially “gone gold,” meaning that the game is now in a complete, working condition.
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Sorry, still no Silksong.
Lost Soul Aside will be available on August 22, 2025, forPlayStation 5,PC, and yes, no more delays this time.
From Solo Project to Sony Partnership
In 2016, Chinese developer Yang Bing released a demo video for what was to be Lost Soul Aside. The footage went viral, Sony came knocking, and suddenly Yang’s personal project became part of the largerChina Hero Project.
To give you a bit of context, theChina HeroProject isa program in partnership with PlayStation that aims to mentor and develop ideas and initiatives from indie Chinese devs. They provide support for quality control, audio, code reviews, and even marketing for promotional support. Anything that a small, budding developer can’t acquire because of budget constraints, they’ve got it covered.
For Yang Bing, it’s a dream come true, even if it took his game years to develop and has faced several delays, because, thanks to PlayStation, his singular project is now a 40-man studio effort.
If you watched any teaser or trailer from this dev or the studio, you can see the very apparent similarities with Final Fantasy in terms of character design. That’s becauseYang Bing’s favorite series is Final Fantasy, and he derives a lot of inspiration from the Square Enix franchise.
In fact, during aninterview at Famitsu, he revealed that his fascination with Final Fantasy stemmed mainly from the character design:
The main character’s face and hairstyle were more akin to a manga character, but the texture of the skin, hair, and clothes is realistic.
It’s this combination of surreal and reality that allowed him to be inspired and create Lost Soul Aside.
For the “action” part of his RPG, Yang Bing shared that Lost Soul Aside draws heavy influence from flashy games likeBayonetta,Ninja Gaiden,andDevil May Cry, with inputs and ideas coming from his now larger team.
Today, the dream becomes a reality. According to the team’s WeChat announcement, they’re currently putting in the finishing touches on final optimizations and testing. This is understandable considering that the game started out as a PS4 console release, but it’s 2025 now, so they’re making the obvious jump to PS5.
All we’ve got is high hopes, because if you’re anticipating this game, you’ve already waited for almost a decade, and that kind of expectation is a tough bar to clear.
Lost Soul Aside will be available on June 25, 2025 on PlayStation 5 and PC. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korean residents might have to wait just a tad bit later, as the game will be available on July 20, 2025 for those regions. Pre-purchases are also available for the Standard Edition ($59.99), and Digital Deluxe Edition ($69.99).
