Grasshopper Manufacture hasn’t finished development on their next game, the assassin themed Killer Is Dead, but the company has already started production on yet another action game, scheduled to ship sometime after Killer Is Dead launches.
Like Killer Is Dead and No More Heroes, Grasshopper’s currently untitled next game will feature yet another sword-wielding protagonist. Unlike those games, the new game’s protagonist will be female (seen above.) The game’s character designs are being handled by Yusuke Kozaki, the artist who previously worked with Grasshopper on No More Heroes. Nowadays, he’s probably best known for designing the memorable cast in Nintendo’s Fire Emblem: Awakening.
In an interview with Famitsu (translated by Gematsu,) Grasshopper Manufacture’s founder and CEO Goichi Suda explained his reasoning for creating another game based around sword fighting: ““There is a base for our specialty, the slash action games we’ve made so far.” The new game will be the first Grasshopper title published by Gung-Ho Online Entertainment, who recently acquired Grasshopper a few weeks ago. Suda hinted that the new title may feature online connectivity of some kind, as he says he wants to take incorporate Gung-Ho’s online experience and infrastructure into his new game. “…with Gungho’s power, we want to put in our know how in ways we haven’t done before. We are also considering developing for not just offline devices, but online devices too.”
You can read more of Suda’s comments about the game, including some hints about the game’s setting, on Siliconera.
I was worried when it was originally announced that Gung-Ho had purchased Grasshopper Manufacture, but it looks like Grasshopper’s new owners aren’t doing anything to mess with Suda’s unique and often bizarre style. The return of Kozaki as a character designer have led some to speculate that this new title might be the oft-rumored No More Heroes 3, and one of the characters who appears in the concept art for the new game does bare a strong resemblance to Travis Touchdown’s protege, Shinobu. Even if this new game ends up being completely unrelated to No More Heroes, I can’t help but get excited at the idea of getting not just one, but two brand new Suda-directed action games in the near future. I was a huge fan of Killer7, No More Heroes, and Shadows of the Damned, so I’m already really hyped for this new game as well as Killer Is Dead.
Killer Is Dead is being published by Kadokawa Games, and is still on track to hit the PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime later this year. The untitled new game currently doesn’t have a release date.
