Despite being a beloved game studio with more than 25 years of history, scrappy Japanese game developer Grasshopper Manufacture has never made mega sellers. Founder Suda51 has a knack for niche between the likes of The Silver Case and Killer7, and almost every game released by the studio has reviewed fairly well and enjoyed cult following. But sales have been, well… from what we can tell, Killer is Dead is the best performing on Steam with an all-time peak of just 4,255 players according to SteamDB. Over a decade ago now, Grasshopper’s at-the-time CEO Yoshimi Yasuda claimed that Lollipop Chainsaw was the studio’s best-selling game ever at 700K units.
But maybe this time will be different. Since Grasshopper's shooter Shadows of the Damned came out in 2011 and was a notorious flop, games for us sickos have become more lucrative—or at least have a much better chance of finding their people. That's what Suda51 hopes for Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered, out this week.
"For one thing, I think that there are a lot more indie games coming out now than there were back then," Suda said in an interview with PC Gamer. "Also, to use a term that is used quite a lot recently, there are a lot more diverse games coming out now, too."
You need only look at the sheer number of indie references in the last two No More Heroes titles to see how the scene has grown. A game about an untitled goose probably wouldn’t have been a game of the year nominee back when Shadows of the Damned first came out, but it’s clear player tastes have become a bit broader, even if the AAA space feels safer than ever.
"I feel that weirder, more non-standard games feel much more natural to players nowadays, allowing for more diverse titles to be released," Suda said. "I also feel that Shadows of the Damned has a better chance of being accepted and enjoyed by more players than when it originally came out."
I played Shadows of the Damned at launch, and it's stuck with me ever since. Sure, it's a game where there’s about 50 puns about your skeleton gun using the word ‘boner’, but it’s a stylish action game with cool weapons and some clever levels still well worth playing more than a decade later. Let’s hope Suda’s expectations bear out and more people discover this hidden gem.
