Support Romeo Is A Dead Man if you want Suda51 to keep making games

Suda51 has become a mainstay in the video game industry. He’s arguably more famous than his own characters. He’s the face of Wario64, the popular games news and deals social media account. He’s appeared in multiple Devolver Digital press conferences and events, despite not working for the company. And his most famous character, Travis Touchdown, got spirits and a Mii costume in Smash Ultimate.

His games, on the other hand, don’t always get the same level of attention. Suda has, in some ways, become gaming’s eccentric uncle. The one you can always count on show up at the holidays with a funny story (like the one about the time he ate a whole bag of onions and threw up all night) or unexpected piece of advice (like to eat an entire bag of onions then go to work and throw up if you want a bulletproof excuse for why you can’t work that day). You love him to bits. He’s become a fixture in your life. But you sort of take for granted that he’ll always be there, so you don’t always call him to see how he’s doing. You haven’t been to his house for a while, because even though he’s got an endless collection of cool stuff to show you, he also has the occasional weird smell wafting off the couch cushions. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, “I just spilled, uh, a little something on there a few weeks ago. I put Febreze on it. It’s essentially clean.”

He doesn’t want to worry you. He wants to make you smile, and to occasionally wow you with his antics. That’s why he’d never tell you if he was in trouble. He’d never tell you if he needed your help. 

PUNK IS NOT DEAD, BUT IT COULD BE IF YOU DON’T SUPPORT IT

And to be clear, he hasn’t told me he needs our help either. I’ve interviewed him probably 15 times over the years, and for the past two years, I hosted his panels at Momocon in Atlanta, Georgia. So, I definitely have a unique perspective on his work and his current place in the industry. But I don’t have any insider information here. It could be that everything is going perfectly great and normal with Suda51 and his company Grasshopper Manufacture, and I should just shut the hell up. 

But as someone who desperately wants people like Suda51 to stay in the industry, I’m putting out the alarm anyway. There are too many red flags here to act like everything is normal. Here’s where a few of those “abandon normal” flags are flying at present. 

PUT FEBREZE ON IT

The first of these red flags have been flying for all to see for the better part of a year. Chinese conglomerate NetEase, the current owners of Grasshopper Manufacture, have been quelling staff and shuttering projects for a while now. Over the past couple years they have shut down, or paused the work of, many of their game development teams, including Ouka Studios, Fantastic Pixel Castle, Bad Brain Game Studios, T-Minus Zero Entertainment, Jar of Sparks, and Worlds Untold. NetEase also made headlines when they laid off the director of Marvel Rivals, one of the most successful hero shooters on the market, earlier in the year. If even one of the biggest IPs in the world isn’t safe, even as it’s bringing in buckets of cash, then how safe is Grasshopper right now? 

And while we’re asking questions that have no real answers, in a concerned an ominous tone no less, why was it that Grasshopper was looking for a publisher for Romeo Is A Dead Man? The fact that they were even in the market for a publisher, despite being owned by a publisher, wasn’t even widely known. Suda just sort of casually mentioned it during the recent 5-minute Grasshopper Direct that announced the release date of the game (February 2026, give or take a couple of weeks depending on the need for resubmission), the publisher (Grasshopper!), and the price, $49.99.  That’s significantly lower than most larger-budget games in 2026. And maybe that’s because Grasshopper can pass the money that would normally go to a publisher onto the consumer in the form of a discounted asking price. 

But it makes me worried that Grasshopper didn’t get to make the game as big as they wanted, and are releasing it earlier than planned because they aren’t being funded by NetEase anymore. I’m also worried the whole thing will be more of a six hour start to a larger game that may never fully exist. And the fact that it’s referred to as “Romeo Is A Dead Man: Episode 1: Romeo Dies” in the release date trailer may imply that we’re not getting the full package right away. 

Personally, I’m totally down to pay that much for a 6-hour game if it’s packed with ideas and feelings, and from the looks of the trailers, Romeo Is A Dead Man will go all out on those fronts. It’s got at least 4 different art styles, the promise of fake Gundam mechs, a tragic romance, zombies to kill, some reality altering action, and… Judd Nelson?! From Transformers: The Movie? And The Breakfast Club?!

Didn’t see that coming.

BREAK SOME BONES

So, all told, Romeo Is A Dead Man is definitely going to be worth the price for me, and for most other diehard Suda51 fans. I’m not worried about that part at all. What worries me is that the game may not be able to draw in the more mainstream audience that it would need to appease the purse holders at NetEase, assuming that they even own Grasshopper anymore. And if they don’t, then it’s all the more important that the game is a hit, because without a billion-dollar company to cushion them after a fall, it’s hard to say how many bones they’ll break. 

I think a lot of people today assume that just because a developer is famous, that they’re also rich, and that their games are too big to fail. If the last few years have taught us anything, though, it’s that no one is too big to fail in this industry. The closing of Tango Gameworks after their success with Hi-Fi Rush, Bayonetta 3 and Origins failing to sell big numbers despite starring one of the most famous video game characters of the last decade, Microsoft pulling funding from John Romero, co-creator of Doom, the list goes on and on. 

In short, if you want to see a creator continue to work, you can’t count on other people to support them for you. You have to do it yourself. If not, don’t complain that they “don’t make them like they used to,” because they probably did make them like they used to. You just didn’t buy them like they used to, and that put them out of business.