When Siliconera met with Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda, we talked about his next major project and first collaboration with GungHo Online Entertainment, Let It Die. The game is a PlayStation 4 exclusive slated for release in 2015, which we originally saw last year as Lily Bergamo.
The last time we met we were talking about Lily Bergamo before it was officially announced for PlayStation 4 and Lily Bergamo turned into Let it Die. How did this happen?
Goichi Suda, Producer of Let It Die: I think Lily Bergamo was officially announced in Japan last September. After that while we were designing the game, one of the key features of the game is once a player dies their player data becomes enemy data and they spawn as an enemy.
Using that feature, the game basically evolved from Lily Bergamo to Let It Die. It was a better concept. It better represented what we were thinking. The game officially became Let It Die around December.
What about the female lead character, concept art, and mysterious red door – are all of those designs gone?
There was a complete shift in the environment and world, so yeah everything is gone.
Are you ever going to reuse the Lily Bergamo world or story, maybe not for Let It Die, but for another game?
It’s not going to be obvious to players, but there are a lot of assets and visuals reused from Lily Bergamo in Let It Die. So, it’s not like we scrapped it completely. Let It Die is an evolution of Lily Bergamo.
The story has changed, though and there aren’t any plans to use any of the other assets.
How does the combat work?
There are some hints in the trailer. Did you see where there is a player shooting someone up top? That’s how battles are going to go. Keep your eyes open for about three or four peeks at gameplay footage.
What kinds of characters are in Let It Die? Are they brooding characters like in the trailer or does the game have wacky characters like the Grim Reaper on a skateboard in the logo?
The main portion of the game is going to be serious like the trailer. I think that the game can’t be serious all of the time, so there will be spots with Suda flavor in it, but the main visuals are like the trailer.
What is your favorite weapon in the game? Can players create weapons by mixing weapons together?
I can only talk about the weapons shown in the trailer, though! Hmm… I like the nail bat and the saw shown at the end has a lot of impact so I like to play with it, but my favorite weapon is the morning star.
The game doesn’t have combo weapons, but if you spot an enemy with a weapon you like you can fight that enemy and take their weapon.
Let It Die is a free to play game. Can you tell us how it will be monetized? Will you sell continues like Puzzle & Dragons? Weapons? Wacky helmets?
Since it is a free to play game, we will sell items, but this won’t be pay to win. We can’t go into details about this right now though.
As you know, Grasshopper Manufacture is known for making console games. Working with the free to play model has been a challenge for us. I see this as a good challenge and my goal is to add Grasshopper Manufacture’s creative juices into the free to play model.
Is Grasshopper Manufacture also developing boxed console games too?
I can’t talk about the other stuff right now. [Laughs]
Is GungHo Online Entertainment America publishing the game in the West?
Yeah.
For GungHo Online Entertainment as a company, Let It Die is quite different from all of the other games GungHo released in Japan since it looks pretty violent.
I can’t speak for GungHo, but I think Morishita-san is a designer that creates fun and interesting games that go beyond Puzzle & Dragons. GungHo, I think, is more like Disneyland where you have different attractions like Star Wars, haunted mansions, and Disney in the same park. I don’t think Grasshopper Manufacture has to blend into what GungH, I think there are genres that we can lead and that is where this game comes in.
Morishita-san is the kind of guy who is constantly thinking. If our team comes up with an idea, Morishita-san usually looks at it from a bunch of different perspectives and comes up with a bunch of different ideas out of the original idea.
