Masayuki Kato, Founder of Ys and Legend of Heroes-Maker Nihon Falcom, Dies at 78

Masayuki Kato, the founder and former president of Ys and Legend of Heroes developer Nihon Falcom, died on Sunday, December 15 at the age of 78, according to an announcement from the company today.

Kato got his start as a computer technician working in the auto industry, but fell in love with personal computers and their capacity for games and entertainment. He founded Nihon Falcom in 1981 originally to publish games for Japanese personal computers in partnership with Apple, making Nihon one of the oldest video game companies still in existance today. He named his company after the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars, but with a “com” at the end for computers.

The founder of Nihon Falcom, Masayuki Kato, passed away on December 15, 2024 at the age of 78.

Thank you for everything. May you rest in peace… https://t.co/j1XR6vQJB0 pic.twitter.com/OTH0rlY8s9

— 🍞 Brad 🍞 (@Baust528) December 17, 2024

Over time, Nihon Falcom under Kato’s leadership became known as one of the pioneers of the action-RPG genre, beginning with Panorama Toh in 1983, Dragon Slayer in 1984, and Xanadu in 1985. Nihon Falcom gradually became a full-fledged developer in its own right, creating long-running series such as Ys and The Legend of Heroes.

The studio continued to stay in the lane of Japanese PC games for the first two decades of its history. But that changed in the early 2000s, when Nihon Falcom began working with PlayStation to bring games such as Ys I & II Complete and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky to PlayStation devices such as the PS2 and PSP. Ever since then, the company has continued to release action RPGs cross-platform and globally with some third-party support, even more recently expanding to Nintendo platform releases.

Kato stepped down from his role as president of Nihon Falcom in 2001 as part of a larger restructure, and was succeeded by Shinji Yamazaki and, later on, the current president Toshihiro Kondo. Kato remained involved with the company as chairman of the board of directors until his death. He is credited as a producer on a number of more recent Ys and The Legend of Heroes games, including the company’s most recent global release, Ys X: Nordics.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.