D4, Deadly Premonition Designer Taking a Break Due to Health Concerns

One of the lead developers at D4 and Deadly Premonition developer Access Games, Hidetaka Suehiro, is taking a temporary break from game development to focus on recovering from a recent health issue. Suehiro, also known as Swery, announced the news on his blog today, saying he needs to step away to recover from reactive hypoglycemia.

"Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you all," he wrote. "Starting today, I will be taking a short break from game development, in order to focus on recovering from reactive hypoglycemia. I'm already slow enough at making games as it is, and I feel like all I ever do is make my fans wait... But I've decided that I need to take a rest here, so that I can hopefully continue to make games in the future."

"I'll keep checking my SNS accounts as much as I can, so I hope to keep seeing you all here whenever I return," he added. "So don't get mad if I go #DrinKING. When I recover from my illness, I'm going to do my best to make games that are better and more awesome than ever before!"

Looking ahead, one of Swery's ideas for a new game involves a high school girl detective who "uses the imagination (fantasizing) energy from masturbating to help her solve murders." He's pitched this to publishers but, so far, he's been told it's too "perverted."

The Japanese studio is also experimenting with some virtual reality projects.

Access Games' most recent release is a quirky murder-mystery game titled D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die. The game debuted on Xbox One last year, while a PC version was released in June.