My personal highlight of PAX East 2024 was the gameplay demo of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered and subsequent interview with Suda51. I managed to get a good feel for the re-release and was able to ask Suda51 some real head-scratchers.
A Cult Classic, Improved
Shadows of the Damned is an action game created by Suda51 (No More Heroes) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil), with a score from Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill). For those of you who are uninitiated with the plot of the title, check out the synopsis from its Steam page:
“A hot-blooded, hellishly twisted, feverishly filthy, love and hate filled road trip
Join the crass Garcia Hotspur and his boney buddy, Johnson, as they traverse the depths of the Underworld to steal back Garcia’s kidnapped lover, Paula, from the clutches of Fleming, the Lord of the Underworld. Let the soul of rock ‘n’ roll run loose in the heart of the twisted hellscape that is the Underworld.”
I tried out the demo of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered for a good 15 minutes. Though my time with the title was short, I got a good sense of how the game feels. Fortunately, I can say the screen tearing from the original PS3/Xbox 360 release is no more. Also, I believe the frame rate was running at 60 fps instead of 30 this time around, leading to a smoother experience. The gameplay was still brutally hard, and I embarrassingly got stuck on a fight midway through. Controls did take some getting used to, as you can switch weapons and have an alternate fire mode that you use to light dark areas and stun enemies, but players will surely acclimate to them in time.
Picking the Brain of an Industry Legend
After getting my butt kicked, I sat down with Suda51 and asked him a series of questions. Please note: a translator was on hand to relay my inquiries to Suda51, and his responses to them.
What made you decide to revisit Shadows of the Damned?
Actually, we’ve been wanting to do a remastered version of Shadows of the Damned for a long time. We talked to EA about it a long time ago and they said, “Yeah, that would be cool. But it will have to be Origin-based. It can’t be multiplatform.” So I held off. That was a long time ago. I talked to EA about it again, and they ultimately helped out and were being cooperative. And I was able to get it on non-Origin platforms, on all different consoles, so I decided to go with it. Yeah, it’s something that’s kind of been in the back of my mind for a long time and now finally become possible.
EA reportedly shot down some of your ideas for Shadows of the Damned when it was in the concept stage. Were you able to implement any of them into this version?
There wasn’t really anything from that stage we could put in this one. It’s basically a straight up remaster of the original which is what we wanted to do for a long time, for various platforms. There are a couple of new things that were added, though. Not like you know, scoring-wise, but for example, New Game Plus, which is something that we wanted to add the first time around, but just weren’t able to. And also there’s a handful of new skins for Garcia, as well. Especially in New Game Plus. Otherwise, it’s a straight-up remaster of the original.
Are you interested in making a sequel to Shadows of the Damned?
That’s actually something that’s been getting asked a lot recently. Honestly, if Hella Remastered sells really well, then that’s definitely something to look into. Everybody, buy as many copies as you can!
Can you speak to why you and James Gunn weren’t approached to do the Lollipop Chainsaw remaster?
Honestly, we have nothing to do with it whatsoever. There’s nothing me personally or Grasshopper can say about it. It’s not our game, we don’t own the rights. What are you gonna do?
How has the collaboration with Swery been with Hotel Barcelona? Are you able to gel and bounce ideas off of each other?
Hotel Barcelona is something me and Swery have been discussing for a long time now. There’s been lots of times where Swery’s like, “What do you think of this idea or this idea?” Or he asks me to provide a little bit of my own ideas, as well. But basically right now I’m focusing most of my attention on the new title I’m working on. I haven’t been as involved in Hotel Barcelona as Swery, he’s doing most of the heavy lifting.
Can you tell us anything about Grasshopper’s Manufacture’s next game?
(Laughs). It’s an action game. It’s not an RPG. It’s also not a visual novel.
I’ll take what I can get! This is a personal thing that I would like to see. With some of your back catalog re-releasing on modern consoles, is there any chance Killer7 can come back. I know it came out on Steam.
Killer7, that was published by Capcom. It’s definitely something I’ve thought about. At this point, the only deal between me and Capcom was to release it on Steam. That’s not to say it won’t ever come out somewhere else at all. Never say never. It certainly would be an interesting endeavor. That would be cool.
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered will release later in 2024 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S | X, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
