“Suda-verse Badminton” is my future GOTY
No More Heroes 3 is packed with hints about the future of the series. But for now, none of them are happening. Suda told us that while working on No More Heroes 3, he decided to put the series on pause. The game’s polarized reception had nothing to do with it. It’s more about Suda’s priorities. His plan for the next decade is to work on games starring characters owned by his company, Grasshopper Manufacture.
And that doesn’t just mean the big, numbered games in the series are over. I asked Suda if he might consider continuing No More Heroes as a comic, an animated show, or with a smaller-scale game like Travis Strikes Again. None of those ideas are part of his plans right now, but many of the characters from No More Heroes 3, like New Type Kamui, Midori Midorikawa, and Notorious could return in their own games. Grasshopper owns all three of them, where Travis and most other characters from No More Heroes are the property of Marvelous Inc. When pressed further, Suda actually confirmed that Notorious will play a role in one of the three games that Grasshopper is currently working on. And one of them might be a new entry in the Shadows of the Damned series.
That’s right, Suda announced that Grasshopper has reclaimed the rights to the Shadow of the Damned franchise! That must have cost them something, right? I’d be shocked if they spent all that money without a plan to at least port the original game to modern consoles, with a potential sequel to follow.
During our interview with Suda, we talked about all that, how fusing with a video game console made Travis immortal, why Dr. Naomi turned into a tree, the chances of a Grasshopper Vs. River City/Kunio-Kun crossover, and a whole lot more.
Suda, a former high school badminton champion, even teased the release of a giant Suda-verse badminton game. Is he joking? “Maybe.” But then again, Cat Girl Without Salad was started as a joke too…
