Chapter 1407 1325 Brainstorm Session — “Reminiscence”

Zaboru remained seated in front of his desk long after finishing his rough notes about the next handheld. The ZGBA was still resting near his right hand, the unfinished concept document still open on the monitor, but his attention had drifted somewhere else entirely. Thinking about Nintendo, Sony, the PSP, DS, Vita, Switch, and all those systems from his previous life had opened a door in his memories that he had not visited properly in a long time.

His previous life.

More specifically, the end of it.

Zaboru died near the end of 2024, which meant there were things from that year he remembered clearly and others he never got the chance to see finished. One of the strangest little details was the Game of the Year ceremony. He had known the nominees. He remembered seeing the arguments, predictions, fan wars, trailers, endless social media posts, and people already declaring their favorite game the "real winner" before the ceremony had even happened.

But the actual winner?

He never found out.

Zaboru leaned back in his chair and chuckled softly. "That's actually kind of funny."

The nominees immediately returned to his mind.

Black Myth: Wukong.

Astro Bot.

Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

Balatro.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

"Damn…" Zaboru smiled. "That was a really strong lineup."

He rested his cheek against one hand and began remembering them one by one. "Metaphor was really damn good. It was like Persona went, 'Okay, enough school uniforms, let's become medieval now.'" He laughed to himself. "And somehow it worked. Political fantasy, traveling around, weird archetypes, stylish menus everywhere. Atlus really could make opening a damn inventory look cool and the fact the ost is about Monk chanting and rapping really blast as hell!."

His grin widened as Black Myth: Wukong came to mind. "And Wukong slapped. That game was basically mythical badassery turned into a boss-rush vacation. Every five minutes you met another creature from Chinese mythology that looked like it had been doing steroids for five hundred years."

He snorted.

"Astro Bot was basically Sony looking at Mario and saying, 'Fine, we can be adorable too.' And honestly? They did a really good job. Super polished. Really creative. And all those PlayStation references…" Zaboru smiled nostalgically. "That game was practically a museum where everything could punch you."

Then there was Balatro.

Zaboru immediately laughed.

"Balatro…"

He shook his head.

"That wasn't a game. That was legal drugs."

He could still remember the simple premise looking almost harmless. Poker hands. Cards. Jokers. Numbers. Nothing visually extravagant. No cinematic cutscenes. No gigantic open world. No photorealistic faces.

And yet somehow, once the numbers started multiplying properly, something inside the human brain simply stopped functioning.

"One more run," Zaboru muttered while smiling. "That's always how it starts. Then suddenly it's three in the morning and you're emotionally attached to a damn Joker card."

He laughed again before thinking about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. "Rebirth was impressive too. I was never the biggest fan of Final Fantasy moving away from turn-based combat, honestly, but…" Zaboru's expression became mischievous. "I mean, they expanded the world, the graphics were ridiculous, the characters looked amazing, and finally I could play with Tifa looking like she walked straight out of Advent Children."

He nodded solemnly.

"Technology was worth it Aerith, Scarlet are very beautiful ."

After a moment, he added, "Cloud too, obviously and Barett too."

Zaboru laughed alone in his office.

His thoughts eventually returned to the nominee he personally wanted to win.

Shadow of the Erdtree.

He grinned almost immediately. "My GOAT."

The idea of an expansion winning Game of the Year had already caused endless arguments in his previous life, but Zaboru had found the whole situation hilarious. Shadow of the Erdtree was technically downloadable content, yes, but calling it "just DLC" felt ridiculous when the thing contained enough content to embarrass entire full-priced games.

"Seriously, Miyazaki…" Zaboru muttered. "You called that an expansion? That thing was basically Elden Ring 1.5."

Then he suddenly stopped.

His eyes slowly narrowed.

"…Miyazaki."

A smile crept across his face.

"Hidetaka Miyazaki."

Zaboru turned slightly in his chair as the absurdity of his current life hit him all over again.

The very same Hidetaka Miyazaki who, in Zaboru's previous world, became one of the most famous game directors alive—the man behind Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring—was now younger than Zaboru, worked within the orbit of ZAGE, and was dating his little sister.

Zaboru covered his mouth.

"Hehehe…"

His shoulders started shaking.

"Michael Zaki is literally going to become my in-law."

That finally broke him.

Zaboru laughed loudly enough that if anyone walking outside his office would probably assume something had gone wrong. He leaned forward, one hand against the desk, imagining some impossible dinner table in the future where Hidetaka Miyazaki sat beside Sanika while Zaboru casually remembered millions of people from another universe blaming this exact man for destroying them with poison swamps.

"Imagine explaining this to my previous-life self," Zaboru said between laughs. "'Hey, bro, you know Miyazaki? Yeah, that guy. He's dating your sister now.'"

He wiped the corner of one eye.

"And I'm probably going to help him make Demon's Souls."

Another laugh escaped him.

"My life is stupid."

But it was a kind of stupidity Zaboru loved.

For more than ten years in this world, knowledge from his previous life had been one of his greatest advantages. Games, technology, business concepts, internet services, genres, interfaces, hardware philosophies, stories, music, production methods, mistakes companies had made and opportunities they had missed—there was an almost unfair amount of knowledge sitting inside his memories.

There were still countless games he remembered that had never been recreated here. Still technologies that remained ahead of this world. Still genres that had barely begun forming. Still ideas that could completely alter industries if introduced at the correct time.

Yet none of it was infinite.

That was something Zaboru understood more clearly now than ever before.

His memories had a boundary.

Eventually, the timeline would catch up.

Perhaps not exactly in calendar years because ZAGE had accelerated technology so aggressively, but conceptually, the gap was shrinking. This world had already changed so dramatically because of ZAGE.

One day, he would reach a point where the map disappeared.

No remembered release schedule.

No known technological milestones.

No familiar gaming history.

No convenient list of mistakes to avoid.

Just the unknown.

Zaboru smiled quietly.

"Well… when that happens, I'll just have to make genius games from my own ideas, right?"

He shrugged.

"Or brainstorm with everyone here. Honestly, that sounds more fun anyway."

And surprisingly, that thought did not frighten him.

If anything, part of him looked forward to it.

A future he could not predict.

Games he had never played before.

Genres nobody in his old world had created.

Technology nobody had shown him.

Developers surprising him rather than the other way around.

For years, Zaboru had been the man who already knew what could happen.

Eventually, perhaps he would simply become another gamer waiting to discover what happened next.

That sounded wonderful.

Yet once his thoughts reached that point, something else quietly began bothering him.

Zaboru slowly looked toward the window.

"I wonder what my old world is like right now…"

The words sounded strange after leaving his mouth.

He had been in this world for more than ten years.

But did time work equally between worlds?

Had ten years passed there too?

If so, was it already around 2034 or 2035?

Or had time stopped the moment he died?

Or perhaps there was no meaningful connection between the two worlds at all.

Zaboru smiled bitterly.

"Damn…"

Then, because he was still Zaboru, his mind immediately jumped toward the most important questions humanity could possibly ask.

"If it's 2034 over there…"

He narrowed his eyes seriously.

"Did Bloodborne finally get a PC port?"

Silence.

Zaboru waited as though the universe might answer him.

Nothing happened.

He nodded knowingly.

"Still no port. Understandable."

He leaned back again. "Bloodborne 2?"

Another pause.

"Probably also no."

He sighed dramatically. "Sony, please."

Then came sports games.

"Are FIFA and NBA 2K still releasing every year and somehow becoming more expensive while people complain and buy them anyway?"

Zaboru thought for a second.

"Yeah. Definitely."

Some things were simply constants of existence.

"What about FromSoftware?" he continued. "What did they make after Elden Ring? Elden Ring 2? Something completely new? Another Armored Core? Did Miyazaki finally make another game with a poison swamp so disgusting that people filed a human-rights complaint? Wait does he really make Godless Skin Duo Duo?"

He chuckled.

Then his thoughts drifted toward games he missed in a completely different way.

Not gigantic releases.

Not famous franchises.

The random ones.

Balatro.

Inscryption.

Dave the Diver.

Wizard of Legend.

Disco Elysium.

What Remains of Edith Finch.

Blasphemous

Games he had discovered almost accidentally, sometimes through recommendations, sometimes because a thumbnail looked interesting, sometimes because someone online would not stop talking about them.

Small teams.

Strange mechanics.

Unusual art.

Games that had no business being as addictive or emotionally powerful as they were.

"I miss that…" Zaboru murmured.

His smile softened.

"I really miss buying some random game and having absolutely no idea whether it's going to be amazing or complete garbage."

That was something his current life rarely gave him.

He knew too much.

Even when this world created something original, Zaboru's enormous experience often allowed him to recognize influences or predict certain design decisions. He could look at a prototype for ten minutes and already understand half the possibilities.

In his previous life, discovery had been different.

Sometimes he saw a game on sale for eighty percent off and thought, Eh, why not?

Then twenty hours disappeared.

Sometimes he bought something everyone praised and hated it.

Sometimes he downloaded a tiny indie game expecting nothing and remembered it for years.

That uncertainty had been part of the fun.

Zaboru chuckled quietly. "I wonder what happened to League."

His grin returned.

"Are they still releasing champions that are completely balanced?"

He stared blankly ahead for several seconds.

Then burst out laughing.

"Sorry, even I couldn't say that with a straight face."

He shook his head.

"What about Dota? Did Valve finally release heroes consistently, or are Dota players still starving while Gabe Newell counts Steam money?"

Another laugh escaped him.

"And Lord of the Mysteries…"

His voice became softer.

"Did the Chinese animation finally come out? Was it good?"

Zaboru smiled as the memories kept coming.

Anime seasons he would never see.

Manga endings he would never read.

Games he would never play.

Movies he would never watch.

Internet jokes he would never understand.

Creators he would never discover.

Random YouTubers who had not even started their channels when he died.

Technology that might already exist there.

People arguing online about ridiculous things.

People celebrating announcements.

People complaining about games they secretly loved.

Ordinary things.

Completely meaningless things.

And somehow, those were the things that hurt the most.

Zaboru blinked.

His vision had become blurry.

"Hm?"

He raised one hand and touched his cheek.

Wet.

He stared at his fingertips for several seconds.

"…I'm crying?"

Zaboru laughed softly, almost embarrassed by himself.

There was no dramatic pain.

No horrible memory suddenly attacking him.

No regret about choosing this life.

It was simply nostalgia.

A quiet ache for a world he had left behind.

He missed not knowing what came next.

He missed waiting for trailers.

He missed reading stupid arguments.

He missed discovering games.

He missed hearing about something new and thinking, What the hell is that?

He even missed communities full of people complaining about everything.

Because somewhere in all that noise had been a life.

His life.

A life that ended without letting him see what happened next.

Zaboru wiped his eyes slowly.

"I guess I really do miss it…"

For a moment, he simply stared at the desk.

Then his gaze shifted toward the photographs nearby.

Ayumi smiling beside him.

Zenshin.

Arumi.

His parents.

Sanika.

His friends.

ZAGE.

The life he had now.

The people who would be devastated if he disappeared from this world the way he had disappeared from the previous one.

Zaboru's expression softened.

The sadness did not disappear.

It simply changed.

"I miss that world," he whispered. "But…"

He smiled through the tears.

"I love this one too."

That realization made another tear slide down his cheek.

Zaboru laughed quietly and wiped it away.

"Damn it…"

He looked toward the unfinished handheld concept on his monitor.

In his previous life, he had been a player waiting for other people to create the future.

Here, he had become one of the people creating it.

Perhaps he would never know what gaming became in his old world after 2024.

Perhaps Bloodborne 2 never happened.

Perhaps League became even more ridiculous.

Perhaps some unknown developer somewhere created the greatest game Zaboru would never play.

That hurt.

But this world had its own future waiting for him.

A future even he would eventually stop knowing.

And when that happened, maybe he could finally experience something he had missed for years.

Surprise.

Zaboru took a slow breath, wiped his eyes one last time, and placed both hands back on the keyboard.

"Hehehe…"

His smile returned.

"Alright."

The ZGBA rested beside him.

ZEPS 4 was nearing completion.

A new handheld existed only as scattered ideas.

Thousands of games had yet to be created.

Millions of players had yet to discover them.

Zaboru looked at the blank space beneath his notes.

"A future I don't know, huh?"

He began typing again.

"That sounds pretty damn exciting."

And for the first time in a while, Zaboru found himself genuinely looking forward to the day when even he would have no idea what came next.

To be continued.

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