Seaman creator hints that a new Seaman is in the works

Game developer Yoot Saito may be returning to his most famous creation, Seaman, according to a tweet from Saito and a newly launched teaser website.

“Seemingly, a new project is being started,” Saito tweeted today. That tweet included a photo of six men wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Seaman’s tagline, “Don’t panic!” and a silhouette of Seaman himself. The shirts also included a web address, seaman.ai.

That URL points to a minimal teaser website with the title Seaman Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, which is listed “under construction.”

Saito revealed he was returning to video game development in an interview with Wired in 2016. “We need to make money,” he told Wired. “That’s the motivation. Computer games make money.”

Saito hinted that a “spiritual sequel” to one of his games was in the cards, lamenting that people are apprehensive about games in a “brand-new genre.”

The original Seaman was released for Sega Dreamcast in 1999. Sega brought the game, which tasked players with raising the titular sea creature using voice commands, to North America the following year. Sega released a port of Seaman for PlayStation 2 in 2001 and followed it up with a Japan-only sequel in 2007.