Published , by Lexi Luddy
Published , by Lexi Luddy
In 2011, an all-star development team of Goichi Suda, Shinji Mikami, and Akira Yamaoka unleashed Shadows of the Damned on the world. The grindhouse-inspired game reveled in schlock and cheese, much to the delight of reviewers at the time. However, while critics and fans loved the game, sales were disappointing, to put it lightly. Despite this, 13 years later, the game is getting a remaster for modern consoles and PC, thanks to a decade’s worth of “You should play this cult classic” conversations.
Those poor sales for Shadows of the Damned come down to a myriad of factors including the game’s tone which many players simply weren’t expecting. While Shinji Mikami and Akira Yamaoka are well known for their work in the survival horror genre (directing many a Resident Evil and composing the soundtracks for the first four Silent Hill, respectively), it is safe to say, that their long-anticipated collaboration leaned more into the mad-cap surrealism of Suda's previous games, like No More Heroes, than the gritty horror of the other famous creatives attached. This should come as no surprise considering Suda and Mikami’s previous collaboration, Killer7, was itself a much more camp affair than what Mikami had become known for.
On top of this, the game itself had a somewhat difficult development, being announced back in 2006, but not managing to pick up a publisher until 2009 in the form of Electronic Arts. Even after EA and Suda’s development studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, signed a deal, the relationship seemed strained, to say the least. The game went through what Suda later described as “five versions” before finally being approved by EA, as the publisher behind games like Dead Space, struggled to make sense of the game’s irreverent tone paired with its horror inspirations and violence. Suda would later go on to describe these meetings as feeling like “court interrogations.”
It should be no surprise then that over a decade later, sitting in a small room in the Kolnmesse on the final day of Gamescom with Suda and Mikami, I felt somewhat like a very green war reporter talking to two veterans flanked by four more members of Grasshopper Manufacture and NetEase publishing.
When asked about the impetus behind this remaster (which I was reminded throughout the interview is not a remake), Suda explained that the team is “working on new IP right now as well,” but “we’re doing this because we want to make a catalog of our games. To make sure that they’re… playable and people are still able to get their hands on them… [after] their shelf life."
This makes sense considering only a few months ago, the Xbox 360 online store shuttered. While the game is backwards compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles, it is only doable with a disc. Suda explained that while the team wants to continue making new games, “at the same time, [we want to] make sure that our old stuff is still available for people who want to keep playing or people who maybe never played it at in the beginning.”
This idea goes beyond just making Grasshopper’s games available as the studio has recently partnered with the video game book publisher, Lost in Cult, to help bring to market a design works of all the studio’s previous titles. When asked if going through all of their old titles stirred any memories or highlighted any games the two wished more of their fans had experienced, Suda told us two licensed games that he worked on with Bandai Namco came to mind. Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked and Blood+: One Night Kiss are two titles “fans of both [Grasshopper] games, and fans of the anime that they were based on [should know about].”
Over the years working on these games both Suda and Mikami have collaborated with countless legends both in and outside of the video game industry. Suda has worked with the likes of James Gunn on Lolipop Chainsaw Massacre, and Hideo Kojima on a radio play prequel for Snatcher, and is currently working with Swery65 on long-gestating Hotel Barcelona. While Mikami has worked with legendary game designer Hideki Kamiya on games like Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, and God Hand, and mentored the next generation of game development creatives like John Johanas and Ikumi Nakamura before he left Tango Gameworks. When asked if either of them still have people within the games industry they would like to work with, Mikami told us that there “isn’t really any I can think of.” At the same time, Suda elaborated on his side, stating, “As far as people that I’ve kinda always wanted to work with, to be honest, I’ve collaborated with all of them already.” However, he went on to explain that he tries to find new collaborators with each project, explaining, “Each time I make a new game, I tend to have somebody pop into my head like, ‘Oh man, I’d really like to have this person design this character, [or] I’d really like to have this person work on this part of the game.’”
While the two remained tight-lipped on future plans they were much happier to answer questions about past titles and the logistics around seeing them again, so I decided to ask them about the resurgence some of their games have gotten in recent years. Whether it be people sharing clips of God Hand on X (formerly Twitter) or people on Reddit excitedly sharing news stories about the team expressing interest in bringing back Killer7 in some form, I wanted to know if this newfound hype made it easy to go to publishers to pitch remasters like Shadow of The Damned.
Suda explained that the biggest challenge isn’t getting players excited, it's dealing with their previous partners. “This goes for God Hand and even Killer7 in particular, but also just for other past titles in general, the main hurdle when it comes to getting publishers to allow us to put out old games is the fact that the original publishers generally don’t want to give up the rights.” While Capcom or Bandai may not have any interest in re-releasing God Hand, or Killer7 or Blood+: Sidetracked, or Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, Suda explained that “If they do [want to sell the publishing rights], then they are are asking way way more than we want to pay.”
While that might be disappointing for fans to hear, both Suda and Mikami don’t seem to hold any animosity towards previous employers, going as far as being happy to see players enjoying remakes or re-releases of their games that they weren’t involved in. With Mikami telling us, in English, “It’s nice”, and Suda chimed in in agreement saying “Me too.”
That said some games from their catalogue keep coming up, after exciting fans a few weeks back by telling the press they would both like to bring back Killer7, we asked them if those expressions of interest have ever gone past idle interview small talk. Suda told us, “To be honest, when I get together with Mikami, we generally start talking about Killer7. Mikami wants me to make a sequel to it, and me personally, I’d like to make a Director’s Cut.” However, he went on to say, “The main problem with that is [that] Capcom owns the IP rights and… it would probably be pretty difficult to get them to sell it to us.”
Not all hope is lost though, as Mikami went on to say “If we paid them enough, [Capcom] would almost definitely sell [Killer7] to us. I don’t know how much it would cost, but we’d probably end up having to ask this company here, NetEase Games, to front us the money for it”, he said gesturing at the logo behind us. He ended the interview by saying that, “It is something we talk about a lot.”
The translations for this interview were provided on-site by James Mountain, Community Manager and Localisation Specialist at Grasshopper Manufacture.