Yosuke Hayashi is the current head of Team Ninja, a Koei Tecmo company that was part of Project M, the development team of Metroid: Other M. Hayashi was the producer and director of that game alongside Yoshio Sakamoto from Nintendo, but did not write the game's story, which was handled by Sakamoto. Hayashi attempted to combine the exploration-based gameplay of the Metroid series with action and combat elements from Team Ninja's primary series, Ninja Gaiden, while developing Samus Aran's character as a relatable person to the player.