is a 2011 action video game developed by Ignition Tokyo and published by UTV Ignition Games for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It saw later releases on Windows and Nintendo Switch, with a PlayStation 5 port planned for later release. The storyline, based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch, follows the immortal scribe Enoch as he is sent by God to find seven fallen angels and save humanity from a great flood triggered by the Council of Heaven. Gameplay has Enoch platforming through 2D and 3D levels which vary in presentation and art style, with hack and slash combat using weapons stolen from enemies.
Production began in 2007, and included several former members of Capcom's Clover Studio. After being contacted about the project idea, director and character designer Sawaki Takeyasu was given extensive creative freedom, contributing to the simplified game design and focus on art and music. The storyline, based around the theme of self-sacrifice, was described by Takeyasu as being "half-finished" due to production problems. The music was co-composed by Masato Kouda and Kento Hasegawa, with members of music production company Imagine contributing to arrangements.
Announced in May 2010, El Shaddai received an extensive promotional campaign. Journalists praised its art design and music, but the game saw low sales. The game was Ignition Tokyo's only product, as it was closed in 2011 shortly before its release, and planned sequels were abandoned. Takeyasu supervised further El Shaddai-related media, going on to purchase the intellectual property in 2013 and developing a follow-up called The Lost Child in 2017, and another called Starnaut in 2025.
Gameplay
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is a single-player action video game in which players take control of the immortal scribe Enoch through eleven levels; the gameplay combines elements of platforming and hack and slash-based combat. Each of the levels uses a different artistic style and camera position, with levels alternating between 3D and 2D presentation. One level includes a driving sequence on a motorbike. During exploration and combat, Enoch can jump, attack, block long and short-ranged attacks, and dodge.
In combat, Enoch fights standard enemies and bosses in arenas, initially with his bare fists and then with three weapon types stolen from enemies. the weapons are the sword-like Arch, the long-range Gale, and the heavy-hitting Veil which also acts as a shield; each is strong or weak against another weapon. When in combat, Enoch's attacks are mapped to one button, with the frequency and timing of presses determining the type of attack; repeated presses launches a combination attack, while holding the button can trigger alternate strong attacks. Weapons must be periodically purified to recharge them as they lose attack power when used for a period of time. Enoch can also parry attacks or break an enemy's blocking stance with the right timing, allowing for counterattacks. During some later fights Enoch can trigger Overboost, which increases Enoch's attack power and unlocks unique skills.
Levels house secret areas and collectables alongside items which aid the player. These items are Lights of Blessing which restore Enoch's armor, Flames of Power which can be used to increase the Overboost level, and Fruits of Wisdom which give access to weapons. El Shaddai does not use a traditional HUD on its initial playthrough, with information being displayed through the in-game environment; damage to Enoch and enemies are shown through their armour, graphic displays show an enemy's status, the character Lucifel appears in the environment and saves the player's progress, and Enoch's weapons display their condition through color. In most scenarios when Enoch is knocked out, the player can revive by rapidly pressing face buttons, with the window of recovery lessening as the game progresses. If Enoch falls during a platforming section, he is reset to an earlier safe location to try again.
Synopsis Semyaza, a former member of the Council of Heaven, steals pieces of God's wisdom and descends to Earth due to his love of humans. Alongside Azazel, Ezekiel, Armaros, Sariel, Arakiel and Baraqel—referred to as the Grigori—they accelerate human evolution and produce human-Grigori hybrids called Nephilim which threaten to destroy the world. Enoch, originally brought to Heaven as a scribe, is sent to Earth by God to recover the Grigori before the Council of Heaven triggers a great flood to wipe out all life. After three centuries of searching, accompanied by the guardian angel Lucifel and four Archangels, Enoch discovers the Grigori's Tower in an isolated spacial realm. As he navigates the Tower and fights its enthralled inhabitants, he learns through notes left by allied human Freemen and statements from the Grigori that an entity of Darkness called Belial tempted the Grigori with power in exchange for the souls of humans who die in the Tower. Enoch ends up meeting a human Freeman girl called Nanna and her passive Nephilim companion Neph, then defeats Sariel and learns that Nephilim die when their parent Grigori is defeated. It is revealed that Baraqel was devoured by one of his Nephilim when it went berserk, and Arakiel died during the Grigori's descent.
During his fight with Armaros, Belial tricks Enoch into the Darkness by kidnapping Nanna. Armaros, who considered himself Enoch's friend before coming to Earth, sacrifices himself to the Darkness to retrieve Enoch and Nanna, the latter absorbing the spirit of legendary Freeman warrior Ishtar. While Enoch's soul recovers, the surviving Grigori massacre the Freemen, and a despairing Nanna embraces Ishtar's power and fights the Grigori as the Darkness begins corrupting her. A revived Enoch defeats Ezekiel, which kills her Nephilim children including Neph. On the top floor, Enoch defeats Azazel, who is then killed by Belial and replaced by the corrupted Armaros. Enoch defeats Armaros and purifies Nanna, the two discovering that Semyaza has already died. Lucifel then teleports Nanna away, and a final narration from the Archangels reveals Enoch's actions ended the Tower's influence and persuaded the Council of Elders to halt the flood. A post-credits scene shows Armaros's passive Nephilim swimming in the ocean, hinting that Armaros is still alive.
Development The concept for El Shaddai emerged at UTV Ignition Games, a video game developer and publisher. Then-CEO Vijay Chadha was a fan of Sawaki Takeyasu, an artist known for his work at Capcom on Devil May Cry (2001) and Ōkami (2005). Following Ōkami, Takeyasu went into freelance development through his studio Crim. In 2006, after hearing Takeyasu had gone independent, Chadha visited him in Japan and persuaded him to create a new action game with Takeyasu's art style. This coincided with UTV Ignition's UK offices pitching a new game intellectual property (IP) which would be based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch. After accepting the project, Takeyasu was given great creative freedom. The game successfully pitched to UTV Ignition's Indian office, which provided funding, using a movie Takeyasu put together with help from CGI production company Shirogumi.
Development was handled by Ignition Tokyo, a studio founded in late 2007 as part of UTV Ignition's in-house development plan; El Shaddai was the only project completed by the studio before it was closed down in March 2011 due to restructuring within UTV Ignition following poor financial performances. Initially Takeyasu was only handling character and world design, but his in-depth position caused him to be appointed director. Masato Kimura and UTV Ignition's Kashow Oda were co-producers. Several staff members were veterans of the then-defunct Clover Studio, with further additions from Square Enix and Sony Computer Entertainment. The lead designer was Yusuke Nakagawa. Katsuya Nakamura acted as lead programmer. A large number of the team members were first-time developers, prompting an early focus on studio structure to ensure easy development.
Full production began in 2007 and lasted three years; initially only having four staff members including Takeyasu and Kimura, the team expanded to 100 people internally, and a total of between 120 and 130 including freelance developers. The game was completed and going through final quality assurance and submission by December 2010. Full production wrapped in March 2011. Takeyasu later stated the budget was around ¥2 billion. The game was made for both PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Xbox 360 (360), with Takeyasu not wanting the game to release until the consoles were well established in the market. Development was smooth until Ignition's later financial troubles forced the team to finish the game ahead of schedule, releasing it without having additional time for balancing and bug fixes. The choice to release it was Takeyasu's, was the game would otherwise have been cancelled.
Takeyasu wanted the game to be a balance between the traditional design of Devil May Cry and the artistic focus of Ōkami. The goal was a mythology-based action game similar to the God of War series. While this concept was established early, the gameplay design was not fully settled upon until late into development. The design aim was to create a game where story, art and music was the central element. As games at the time were moving towards more realistic graphics and complex control schemes, Takeyasu took the opposite approach for El Shaddai. The game alternated between 3D and 2D levels to add variety. Takeyaso, after noting companies other than Nintendo were not producing platformers, incorporated extensive platforming into El Shaddai. Speaking about the simplified controls, Takeyasu compared their functionality to both rhythm and fighting games due to the emphasis on timing. There was also no traditional UI or HUD, with it instead being integrated into the world to promote player immersion. The jumping was given depth through the role of weapons, but this freedom increased the bug testing load. The weapon mechanics were implemented by Takeyasu after receiving complaints from other staff members that they could not design the gameplay around the simplified controls. The need to release early meant the team could not add more level-based gimmicks such as building stairways and breaking a sequence of walls to progress. The bike level was created with assistance from developers of the Shutoko Battle series.
To allow for maximum trial and error within development time, it was decided to license different middleware. Five different middlewares were used to take pressure off of the studio staff, a rarity in Japanese development at the time. After testing different game engines, the team settled on Gamebryo as they felt it would work with their design needs. While Unreal Engine was considered, there was little support for it in Japan and thus a lack of information on its use. It also lacked features which could implement the desired art style. The animation was handled by the Morpheme middleware program, with added functions created with help from its developer NaturalMotion. Using Morpheme, the team created character animations that would be stylised and flow naturally into each other without losing all realism. Additionally the team used Autodesk's Scaleform GFx for the menu and text displays, Nvidia's PhysX for the in-game physics, and CRI Middleware's CRI Movie software for video playback. To achieve the levels' real-time visual changes, multiple custom shaders were used which shifted the game's art and lighting based on camera and player position. The shaders were created by programmer Tsuyoshi Okugawa based on Hori's designs. Okugawa called the debugging "dirty and difficult" due to the interacting shaders.
Scenario and art design