Straight from the Source: Goichi Suda on Travis Strikes Again and Crossovers

Note: This interview was conducted at BitSummit Roadshow 2018 in Tokyo. The interview was conducted by PushDustIn, Brando and Eigotaku.

Special thanks to Gavin Greene for providing live interpretation and to the Dangen Entertainment Team for organizing the interview.

PushDustIn: You recently delayed Travis Strikes Again because of Smash Bros. That was very kind of you.

Suda: I really like Smash Bros and I want to support it so I thought pushing my game back was the best choice. (laughs)

PushDustIn: Travis Strikes Again looks amazing, I played it at BitSummit and I had a lot of fun. I was wondering, what you are currently working on with the game?

Suda: Thank you so much. In general, we have started working on debugging and fine-tuning the game.

PushDustIn: How long will it take players to complete the game?

Suda: About 10 hours.

PushDustIn: What price will Travis Strikes Again be?

Suda: I think we’ll be able to announce that soon.

PushDustIn: Will there be any special editions or will it be a normal retail package?

Suda: I’m not sure if I can talk about this right now….I think we can announce something soon.

PushDustIn: Travis Strikes Again has a lot of indie crossovers, with the T-shirts. I believe at BitSummit you told us there would be 64 of them. Is there a particular T-shirt that you are really excited about?

Suda: We have a lot of collaborations with Devolver, and we’ve announced some of them. One of the ones I’m very excited about is Hotline Miami. I would like to do a bigger collaboration with them, hopefully in the future. I have approached other indie developers and have some other collaborations that I’m working on. I can’t announce anything right now but I’m really excited about them. People like [inaudible*] who is here, I’m a big fan of him. He used to be indie, but now he’s working with Nintendo.

There were a lot of people who I approached and we were really excited about working together, but there were things in the contract that would be difficult to do. In the end, there are a lot of people that I’m glad to have worked with, but there were some people that we couldn’t work something out. One thing I really noticed throughout this is that indies really like to support each other and it’s a great community.

PushDustIn: Speaking of that, would you like to see Travis appear in another game?

Suda: Yeah, if it was possible, I think it would be really cool.

PushDustIn: Are there any particular games, like Hotline Miami, that you would like to see Travis in?

Suda: One thing that’s difficult with indie games is there aren’t very many sequels. So what would fit with Travis’ worldview, like the setting — violence, action, kind of modern. Hotline Miami 2 kind of ended the Hotline Miami series but if there was ever a third one, I would like to work with them and do some sort of collaboration.

PushDustIn: You also announced Killer7 is coming back. Is there any chance of a Switch port?

Suda: Right now I’m talking with Capcom and we are aiming to release it on Steam. We get a lot of requests from the younger crowd who haven’t had the chance to experience it yet. If that goes well, then we’ll think about the next step.

PushDustIn: Random question time. What has been a game that you’ve worked on that you enjoyed the most?

Suda: Hm… This is difficult. If I had to think about a game…where we had good staff balance and wasn’t stressful, it was a project with did with Level-5 called Liberation Maiden which was part of the Guild-01 series.

PushDustIn: You had a bit of an unconventional way of getting into the gaming industry. What was the most valuable profession or experience that you had?

Suda: I did a lot of different things before I entered the gaming industry. One of the things that I realized was, making things is so great. When I started, we just had Super Famicom but now we have Xbox, Switch, and VR. So I watched tech move forward as I was in this industry. Something that I’ve realized is that things are constantly changing in this industry, every day’s a new adventure. Before that, a lot of the jobs I did, every day was the same — same kind of job or same kind of activity. That’s something that’s really important for society to continue to function, but after I entered the gaming industry I saw things changing and it kept things interesting. It makes me think I’m very lucky to be in such a place where things are always fun and exciting.

PushDustIn: Is there anything in the game industry that you are reluctant to embrace?

Suda: There are….but I shouldn’t say.

(Everyone laughs)

Brando: What games are you looking forward to personally?

Suda: Red Dead Redemption 2. I don’t know if I’ll have time to play it, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m also really looking forward to what Dennaton, the team behind Hotline Miami, makes next.

Push: Thank you very much.

*Note: I think he is saying Mopin, but a quick search didn’t reveal anything.