Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 was released in August 2017. Is there anything you can share about a new entry in the series or other developments for Ace Attorney?

Eshiro: There's nothing I can say specifically at the moment [laughs]. But [Takumi and I] are thinking hard about what comes next and we're getting things prepared for that right now. Please look forward to _all_ the AA series has to offer!

Development on Ace Attorney 4 started right around the time we finished Rise from the Ashes. The whole team felt like we'd given it everything we had, and we were all sort of walking around in a daze... and that's exactly when the higher-ups publicly announced "we're making Ace Attorney 4! And we were like 'wait, we are!?'"

That last part is hilarious. It's kinda sad that they had so little time to really finish AJ, but also kind of amazing that it turned out to be so great.

You mean AA7 by Takumi? That would…certainly be something, though it would be a little confusing to settle into.

While the wording reads (to me at least) like Takumi is still involved in the games, it's possible he's just working on side stuff (like a new season of the anime or something else) while someone else heads up the next new game. In some ways I kind of hope that's the case, as DGS1+2 felt like a good cap to a lot of Takumi's goals with the series, and I'd love to see another Ghost Trick-style new IP out of him.

But if he is working on AA7, that's kind of interesting in its own way to see how he would address all the changes in the series since AA4.

In any event, I still suspect we'll get a more solid tease about the next game at the concert in April... and if not there, then definitely at TGS in September. But I'll be very surprised if we see a new AA before 2019.