Grasshopper Manufacture, the punk rock video game studio led by CEO and game designer Goichi “Suda51” Suda, turned 25 years old earlier this year. This milestone firmly entrenches Grasshopper as a contemporary of larger and more well-known developers like Valve, Sony Santa Monica, and Retro Studios, which may come as a shock if all you know about the studio is that time Suda revealed a game while sitting on a toilet.
The studio epitomizes the kind of success story you don’t see too often these days—the plucky start-up making instant cult classic video games and, in the process, acquiring a fanbase of ride-or-die devotees—so we went straight to the source for answers on how they pulled it off: Suda51 himself. Our conversation with the mastermind behind Killer7, No More Heroes, and Shadows of the Damned dove headlong into Grasshopper’s “give no fucks” attitude, revealing some of Suda’s long-dormant white whales as well as how the studio’s games have been influenced by filmmakers like Alejandro Jodorowsky and Takashi Miike.
Read all about it over at Game Developer.
The idea that one of Suda's remaining career aspirations is to make a Gundam game is very much so something a guy his generation would say, but if anybody could break Namco's sterile grip on it and make something that's as wild as some of the stuff you'll find in the outer fringes of the franchise, by god, it's gotta be him. Genuinely fascinating notion to ponder.