Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture is coming back next year with Romeo Is a Dead Man, a relentlessly quirky, bizarre, and ultra-violent action game that is dripping with Goichi Suda’s unmistakable artistic touch. Not much is known about Romeo Is a Dead Man at this point, with the game only being revealed during yesterday’s State of Play, but its bombastic reveal trailer is likely to stick in the hearts and minds of audiences for a while yet.
But what is Romeo Is a Dead Man actually about? That’s harder to answer than one might think, despite the unapologetic and forthright nature of its reveal trailer, but there are a few facts that can be pinned down. Players will assume the role of Romeo Stargazer, a police officer who receives a mortal wound from a monster that turns up on his doorstep. Luckily, he is saved moments before death by a contraption called Dead Gear, built by his suspiciously youthful grandfather, which turns him into Dead Man, an “FBI Space-Time special agent” who travels through space-time on a hunt for the multiverse’s most dangerous criminals, while also trying to reconnect with his lover Juliet. Again, capturing the essence of Romeo Is a Dead Man in writing is easier said than done.
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Romeo Is a Dead Man Is Suda51’s Psychedelic Version of a High-Action Zombie Adventure
Romeo Is a Dead Man Is Like Dead Rising On Acid
Capcom’s Dead Rising series, whose relevance spiked recently thanks to the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster released last fall, is all about intense action augmented by player creativity, improvisation, and resourcefulness. The first two games in the series take place in what many would consider the distillation of 2000s US culture—a mall—which is overrun by rabid zombies. But thanks to a healthy dose of moxy and a tinge of reckless abandon, Dead Rising‘s heroes are able to turn a dire situation—being trapped in a finite area with hundreds of flesh-eaters—into an opportunity for survival, making use of all manner of mundane items to hack, slash, shoot, and bulldoze their way through hordes of undead.
Romeo Is a Dead Man looks to be leveraging similar levels of absurdity, apparently even taking players to a mall, which could be a potential nod to Dead Rising. Consciously or not, the game does look to share at least some DNA with Capcom’s ultra-violent zombie action franchise, following an eccentric hero as they carve a path through shambling monsters. Dead Rising and Romeo Is a Dead Man are also linked by their fundamentally unserious nature, as they both throw reverence and sobriety to the wind in favor of unabashed action and high-stakes thrills. But of course, it’s always a fool’s errand to try and predict what a Suda51 game will be like.
‘Suda51’s Dead Rising’ Is a Nice Elevator Pitch, but Romeo Is a Dead Man Will Likely Be Its Own Thing
Comparisons can be useful, especially in the games industry: it’s easy to efficiently communicate a game’s tone, gameplay, or narrative structure by likening it to another game, as the interactive nature of the medium can sometimes make it hard to succinctly describe an individual release without external references. But all the same, Grasshopper Manufacture is one of the rare studios that consistently puts out inventive and one-of-a-kind experiences, so Romeo Is a Dead Man will almost certainly be unlike just about anything audiences have seen before, with the exception of other Suda51 projects like Killer7 and No More Heroes.