"Boss, did you buy the collector's edition of that new game Black Myth: Ho-oh?" Zoroark asked curiously as they walked to the audition site.
"You mean that game? Of course I did," Edward replied naturally.
In the Pokémon world, the gaming industry was actually quite advanced. In the past, there were titles like Sekiro: 2nd Ghost, where players could control a Gengar in a high-difficulty, Souls-style game. There was also the hugely popular Pokémon Hunter. But recently, the biggest buzz in the gaming community was all about a breakout hit from a previously unknown studio— Black Myth: Ho-oh.
The moment it was announced, it exploded in popularity across the internet. Even before its official release, it topped trending lists. It was hard to imagine just how popular it would be once it actually launched.
"I saw some reviews—BGN League Headquarters gave it an 8, while BGN Hoenn Branch gave it a perfect 10!" Zoroark said excitedly, rubbing his hands together.
Edward wasn't surprised; he had seen that piece of news too.
"That kind of score makes it almost impossible for the game to flop... but honestly, BGN's ratings aren't very objective anymore. Remember how Starfield got high marks from them, even though the gameplay was a disaster?" Edward shrugged.
He had high expectations for Black Phoenix King, and had already preordered the collector's edition. As for BGN, his impression of the review group was fairly average. Their ratings had been strange for a while, leading many to suspect under-the-table dealings.
After all, if a mess like Starfield could get 7s, 9s, and even 10s, something was definitely off.
"I'm really looking forward to playing it," Zoroark said with a huge grin.
Edward glanced sideways at him. Want to play early? Judging by the schedule, by the time Black Phoenix King officially launched, Edward would likely be knee-deep in filming his next movie.
This time, he wasn't planning to shoot A Wicked Ghost in other regions. The settings it needed could all be found within the Hoenn Region. The lake scenes, for example, could use the lake in Petalburg Forest as a stand-in.
Recently, Edward hadn't been visiting the Puppet Theater or the Haunted Hospital in Petalburg Forest, but he hadn't completely ignored them either. Right now, both attractions were seeing fairly stable attendance—more visitors on holidays, fewer on workdays.
Though Mismagius hadn't complained, Edward knew he had to figure out a way to solve this problem.
The Ghost-type Pokémon didn't require much upkeep, but he couldn't just let his theme parks run at a loss. Right now, the popularity of those parks was entirely tied to the fame of his movies.
Whenever Dead Silence or One Missed Call was showing, the parks were packed. But once the movies went off-screen, visitor numbers dropped sharply.
"If that's the case, even if A Wicked Ghost brings in traffic again, once it's done airing, things will just die down all over again..." Edward frowned slightly as he opened the door and stepped inside.
The staff inside greeted him immediately. Edward nodded in return and glanced around the room.
The judges for today's auditions were Deck, Daniel, and Ada.
Edward gave them all a polite nod before taking the center seat.
Ghost Film Pictures was gaining traction, but compared to the long-established film companies, there was still a noticeable gap. That was evident from the small number of actors coming in to audition.
Deck was basically a resident guest at this point—an old veteran who still had to show up daily to judge other people's acting. Daniel was more of a serious actor, so his participation made sense. Ada was one of the few directors in the company. Even though he only handled Tom and Jerry, he was still technically a director, wasn't he?
Edward thought maybe it was time for the company to start training new directors. Otherwise, too many projects would continue to rely on him personally.
For example, Monica's Dollhouse was a great script, but Edward had to outsource it. The good news was that filming had already begun. Edward had taken a producer credit, hoping to see if the film would generate fear points. If it did, then he could start handing off good horror or thriller scripts to other directors, allowing him to collect fear points faster.
Soon, the actors started coming in one by one for auditions. After watching for a while, Edward finalized the actors for Xiao Ming and Fa Mao, and also selected a batch of extras.
A Wicked Ghost required quite a few extras—those who participated in the spirit-calling game early on had decent screen time as well.
Once the casting was finalized, Edward left the rest of the preparations to Deck and Zoroark. This time, the script didn't require much adaptation.
However, Edward was planning to try something new—integrating Pokémon into A Wicked Ghost.
It would definitely complicate the horror plot, given that Pokémon could technically battle Ghost-types using actual moves. But Edward wanted to experiment with making these evil spirits completely impervious—even able to harm Pokémon—while Pokémon would be helpless against them.
In that case, he believed the fear factor would rise significantly.
After all, in the Pokémon world, people weren't particularly scared of Ghost-type Pokémon, because they could always rely on their own partners to protect them.
But what if an enemy showed up that even Pokémon couldn't deal with?
That would be true terror.
Edward recalled reading reviews of Dead Silence and One Missed Call, where people would always bring up the same question: "If the protagonist had X Pokémon, wouldn't that have changed everything?"
There were even parody fanworks where Gengar beat up Mary Shaw, or Blissey emotionally healed Mizuko from One Missed Call.
That's when Edward realized—Pokémon were a core part of life for people in this world. Just like no Korean could avoid talking about Samsung, no one here could ignore Pokémon.
"If that's the case... how about a scene where Chu Renmei rips a Blissey to shreds?" Edward fell into deep thought. Honestly, it wasn't a bad idea.
He could even add a few more scenes of supporting characters trying to use their Pokémon to resist—only for their efforts to fail completely. That would both amplify the fear factor and establish the malevolent spirits as truly terrifying enemies.
(End of Chapter)