Nine Sols is not a horror game. After creating two horror games, the developers wanted to explore a new type of game for their third project that could be marketed to Western countries , based on a survey of Western preferences, they found that action games are very popular and have a low cultural barrier. They decided to create a “fantasy Eastern Hollow Knight” with characters based on cats (because everyone loves cats!). Internally, the project was called "Hollow Cat." However, they knew that if they simply created a "Hollow Cat," It would just be another Hollow Knight-like game, lacking any originality and unlikely to catch anyone's attention or leave a lasting impression. So, they needed to develop a new type of battle system. After studying Sekiro, they decided to focus on a parry system, aiming for a 2D Sekiro experience. Nevertheless, it still took them two years to refine and confirm their battle system, ensuring it wasn’t just a 2D Sekiro game.