Grasshopper Manufacture has to be just about the busiest developer working these days. Between studio head Suda 51's upcoming high school zombie comedy Lollipop Chainsaw, and recent downloadable titles like Sine Mora and Diabolical Pitch, you'd think that available development resources would be at a premium. Not so much that Suda couldn't just up and announce another project, apparently.

Speaking to Sokuho (as translated by Andriasang), Suda today revealed his next directorial project, an action game called Killer is Dead. If your first thought is, "Whoa, is this the Killer7 sequel I've been waiting for all these years?" I'm sorry to report that no, it is not. It is, in fact, an entirely original game that puts you in the role of an "Executioner," a specialized agent whose job is to travel around eliminated "S-level criminals." Sounds sort of like a cross between James Bond and Dexter, no?

The game is still fairly early in development and won't be out until sometime next year, but Suda did at least give a hint about what gameplay would entail, describing it as similar to the kinds of swordplay found in his No More Heroes series, in addition to new combat systems.

Andriasang seems to think that more on Killer is Dead will pop up later this week. If it happens while we're running around PAX East, we'll forgive you if you read about it on another site. But just this once.

UPDATE: One of our fine commenters pointed out that some concept art for the game has popped up. You can see it below.

Gallery

Grasshopper Manufacture has to be just about the busiest developer working these days. Between studio head Suda 51's upcoming high school zombie comedy Lollipop Chainsaw, and recent downloadable titles like Sine Mora and Diabolical Pitch, you'd think that available development resources would be at a premium. Not so much that Suda couldn't just up and announce another project, apparently.

Speaking to Sokuho (as translated by Andriasang), Suda today revealed his next directorial project, an action game called Killer is Dead. If your first thought is, "Whoa, is this the Killer7 sequel I've been waiting for all these years?" I'm sorry to report that no, it is not. It is, in fact, an entirely original game that puts you in the role of an "Executioner," a specialized agent whose job is to travel around eliminated "S-level criminals." Sounds sort of like a cross between James Bond and Dexter, no?

The game is still fairly early in development and won't be out until sometime next year, but Suda did at least give a hint about what gameplay would entail, describing it as similar to the kinds of swordplay found in his No More Heroes series, in addition to new combat systems.

Andriasang seems to think that more on Killer is Dead will pop up later this week. If it happens while we're running around PAX East, we'll forgive you if you read about it on another site. But just this once.

UPDATE: One of our fine commenters pointed out that some concept art for the game has popped up. You can see it below.

Gallery

i really want to see this.

Will there be a parody of Suda51's twitter, called Suda52 ?

@KovicMAN: Here's the concept art

What is it with the Japanese and S-ranks? Is it super? Wait, I bet there's a wiki entry...

Does this guy actually make games? or just come up with bat shit ideas for games?

Killer of killers?

So just like in No More Heroes?

Come on Suda, you gotta wait at least a week after Lollipop Chainsaw is released! You're doing a terrible job on keeping my interest in it!

By the way, great extremely japanese title.

Killer of killers... so he is making a Dexter game?

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

Killer is dead is killer as a title

People just keep giving him money!!! :D

@matthias2437 said:

Killer of killers... so he is making a Dexter game?

My first thought. That would be amazing (hopefully).

Cheapy D from Cheapassgamer lives in Japan and is friends with the grasshopper game devs. They all say Suda is a complete dick and they honestly wish he was dead.

I love Suda but have any of his games sold well?

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

@Distrato said:

Cheapy D from Cheapassgamer lives in Japan and is friends with the grasshopper game devs. They all say Suda is a complete dick and they honestly wish he was dead.

Seen this pop up a lot lately. Anyone wanna post a link to said info?

I've no idea how they get the time and resources for all this. Grasshopper Manufacture must be a bigger business than I thought.

This sounds like it'll end up feeling very similar to No More Heroes. Hard to get that excited.

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

@Distrato said:

Cheapy D from Cheapassgamer lives in Japan and is friends with the grasshopper game devs. They all say Suda is a complete dick and they honestly wish he was dead.

Well, then fuck Cheapy D and his friends if they wish he was dead. That's a fucked up thing to say. He's a game designer, and a weird one that fashions himself an auteur. If we hate auteurs for being assholes, you better not listen to John Lennon, any member of Pink Floyd, just about any rapper ever, you better not buy games from Capcom, and you better not watch movies made by James Cameron, Michael Bay, Christian Bale, Mel Gibson, or, well, most filmmakers. Calm your tits.

That's one fancy bathroom.

Suda: giving us violence and teen age girls. We shouldn't be ok with this yet we are. "She's 18, and yet I decided to put 'lollipop' in the title." Why? I guess lollipops aren't just for 10 year olds anymore and they get sucked on. What red-blooded male doesn't want girls with chainsaws killing and sucking on things? I think I will refrain from buying anything Suda pedals. It may just be me, but I find it gross.

No More Killer?

@Little_Socrates: After recent events, you could add Phil Fish to that list as well.

@msavo said:

I love Suda but have any of his games sold well?

I think No More Heroes did okay...

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

@Distrato said:

Cheapy D from Cheapassgamer lives in Japan and is friends with the grasshopper game devs. They all say Suda is a complete dick and they honestly wish he was dead.

Seen this pop up a lot lately. Anyone wanna post a link to said info?

@Little_Socrates: Apparently he gives his coworkers bars of soap from hotels he's traveled to for Christmas. He kinda sounds like a dick. Also CheapyD didn't say he wish he was dead Suda's team did. If I remember correctly they said they didn't want him to die because he would just become famous, instead they'd rather have someone assassinate him and remove his existence from history. I mean the fact that someone who even think something like that gives some merit to him being a total douche.

Skimmed the title of article and read 'Suda 51 is dead'. I got to stop giving myself heart attacks.

@Distrato: But WHO CARES? John Lennon was such a dick he broke up The Beatles, and Roger Waters spat on his fans at a Pink Floyd concert. Hell, 50 Cent was shot 7 times for some good reason and Suge Knight probably killed Tupac and Biggie. We still listen to them because they put out awesome shit! In fact, they probably put out awesome shit because they're assholes and kind of insane. Until Suda starts being an asshole to his consumers, puts paywalls behind his game's endings, locking essential content behind DLC, etc., I see no reason for this to matter.

@CookieMonster: I guess so. I dunno, that seems to have mostly blown over already, though I'm certain a handful of people won't play Fez because of that. And yet, even though Fish apologized at the panel (according to 8-4 Play, who had a transcript of what transpired) he's getting tons of shit even though Jon Blow called them "joyless husks," never apologized, and has yet to be criticized for it. I personally think what Fish said was totally fine, though he said it crassly (as he often does.)

@Little_Socrates said:

This sounds like it'll end up feeling very similar to No More Heroes. Hard to get that excited.

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

@Distrato said:

Cheapy D from Cheapassgamer lives in Japan and is friends with the grasshopper game devs. They all say Suda is a complete dick and they honestly wish he was dead.

Well, then fuck Cheapy D and his friends if they wish he was dead. That's a fucked up thing to say. He's a game designer, and a weird one that fashions himself an auteur. If we hate auteurs for being assholes, you better not listen to John Lennon, any member of Pink Floyd, just about any rapper ever, you better not buy games from Capcom, and you better not watch movies made by James Cameron, Michael Bay, Christian Bale, Mel Gibson, or, well, most filmmakers. Calm your tits.

Relax, guy. No one even said anything about not buying his games so I'm not sure why you said people shouldn't consume the arts of those other people if they don't like bad attitudes.

Anyway, since you don't seem to have any information to go by and just felt like ranting, I'll share two of the main complaints. People who work with him say he does very little actual work and he treats his employees poorly. Those other people you mentioned may be jerks, but few, if any, could be accused of not working hard at what they do.

What happened to that knight paper puppet theater game they also announced last year?

Cool. Any chance this game might actually be good? It'd be a nice change of pace.

Nice! Can't wait to hear more.

@Little_Socrates: Just thought it was interesting, relax dude. Also I don't buy Capcom games.

Goddamn, I do loooove me some Suda51 games!

@everyone

Guys, we're old enough not to make hasty judgement, plus if the game is good and the dev team has been working hard behind it, then there's a reason to buy the game. But if the game is terrible, just avoid it.

Terrible personalities happen in workplaces, and I sometimes act like a dick unknowingly.

@louiedog: See, him being lazy and actively treating his employees poorly beyond a personal relationship? Those are decent reasons not to care about Suda. You're right, I did feel like ranting, 'cause this sort of firestorm about individuals being jerks has been going for about three months with people yelling "I'm never buying one of Dave Jaffe/Phil Fish's games" and then turning around and buying all the offensively aggressive Capcom products put out over the last year. It's not the fact that they're jerks that actually seems to offend people, it's the fact that they have individual voices. And the attention this receives in the games community versus any other media community really does bother me when we consider how many of our greatest ever were the same way. Hitchcock famously mistreated his actors to get the results he wanted. We respect him as a "genius" of filmmaking. I don't mind if someone believes that art by jerks is for jerks, but then why did that person even read the story?

The idea that this is all that needs to be said when Suda announces a new title, that he's an asshole? That bums me out. And it's still a fucked up thing to say that you wish someone was assassinated and erased from history who has, at worst, been a bad boss.

That sounds like the premise of No More Heroes. Except you're an "Executioner" instead of a hitman.

Yes another suda game

Sounds awesome! Can't wait to see it!

@Little_Socrates: But what if he's not Hitchcock and just an ego maniac who thinks he's the Quentin Tarantino of gaming when really most of the games his studio released are average at best and are quirky in a vain attempt to give the game some personality.

That skirt is against corporate regulations.

WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY YOU BRILLIANT SUNAVABITCH!

@Echo said:

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

@Distrato said:

Cheapy D from Cheapassgamer lives in Japan and is friends with the grasshopper game devs. They all say Suda is a complete dick and they honestly wish he was dead.

Seen this pop up a lot lately. Anyone wanna post a link to said info?

It's on the CAGCast, they didn't write it down or anything.

Personally, I don't care. Few good directors are known for being nice, Kubick and Hitchcock both were famously dickish towards their actors, I could totally see the same thing happening in the auteur-dominated Japanese game dev environment. When there's one top dog behind the entire artistic direction of the game, they're probably very used to having everything their way.

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

Most extremely creative people are huge assholes. I have no problem with it as long as he keeps making crazy-ass games.

@Little_Socrates said:

@louiedog: See, him being lazy and actively treating his employees poorly beyond a personal relationship? Those are decent reasons not to care about Suda. You're right, I did feel like ranting, 'cause this sort of firestorm about individuals being jerks has been going for about three months with people yelling "I'm never buying one of Dave Jaffe/Phil Fish's games" and then turning around and buying all the offensively aggressive Capcom products put out over the last year. It's not the fact that they're jerks that actually seems to offend people, it's the fact that they have individual voices. And the attention this receives in the games community versus any other media community really does bother me when we consider how many of our greatest ever were the same way. Hitchcock famously mistreated his actors to get the results he wanted. We respect him as a "genius" of filmmaking. I don't mind if someone believes that art by jerks is for jerks, but then why did that person even read the story?

The idea that this is all that needs to be said when Suda announces a new title, that he's an asshole? That bums me out. And it's still a fucked up thing to say that you wish someone was assassinated and erased from history who has, at worst, been a bad boss.

I think the issue with Suda is that if he is in fact lazy he loses the respect of those employees. All of the other people mentioned probably still get that from those who work for them because they are working hard. If Hitchcock treated his actors poorly and then went back to his office to give interviews and wasn't working hard on the films he'd probably be seen as a different person.

I agree that wishing he was erased from existence is a shitty thing to say, but it also makes me wonder what else we don't know. It may go well beyond just being a bad boss. There are probably some very specific stories that weren't relayed because they would out those who told them. Or maybe the employees were just drunk and went overboard with their comments. It doesn't effect my purchasing decisions because I didn't buy Suda games before. And for the record I've been off Capcom products for years. They seem to have no respect for their customers.

Should I care what CheapyD thinks, because I totally don't. I'm sure he has his own following, and I sometimes hear him on the 8-4 podcast, but this is the same to me as random twitter account I don't follow thinks someone else is a dick.

The allegations about Suda 51 on the Cheapass Gamer podcast are hilarious.

@bighat_logan said:

CheapyD said Suda51 is huge asshole.

Most extremely creative people are huge assholes. I have no problem with it as long as he keeps making crazy-ass games.

@Sergio said:

Should I care what CheapyD thinks, because I totally don't. I'm sure he has his own following, and I sometimes hear him on the 8-4 podcast, but this is the same to me as random twitter account I don't follow thinks someone else is a dick.

He usually calls out bullshit things in the industry which is refreshing since most games "journalism" sites rarely give their opinions on those types of things. He usually takes a neutral stance on new titles and says pretty wise things about the industry while also talking about his morning poops. His website helps gamers not pay $60 everytime a new game comes out so he has my respect.