Romeo is a Dead Man gets even more messed up as story progresses, Suda51 explains Juliet role and 2D spaceship hub

Romeo is a Dead Man is finally around the corner as Grasshopper Manufacture's most ambitious (and psychedelic?) effort to date. On the occasion of its impending release, we got to talk with studio head Goichi "Suda51" Suda, an old Gamereactor acquaintance, who had a lot to share about the creative vision shared with writer Ren Yamazaki, and the intentions behind some of the design decisions.

Talking about the game's trademark balance between satisfying combat and zany scenarios with escalating weirdness, Suda-san promises "messed up bosses" and that things get "even stranger while cool shit happens" as you progress. After the first boss encounter, he confirms:

"From here on out, stuff gets even weirder and all kinds of cool shit happens"

Besides, we wanted to learn more about the love/hate relationship between protagonist Romeo and loving multiverse antagonist Juliet in this peculiar take on Shakespeare's classic, and how it actually evolves in parallel to the dead man's growth:

"Those two things kind of progressing simultaneously, the story of Romeo himself and the story of Romeo and Juliet"

For context, Juliet appears in multiple variants across dimensions or space-time, and the setup involves space-time police and a space-time crime that makes Juliet (and her variants) a fugitive.

Thirdly, we also asked about the top-down, 16-bit spaceship that works as a pixelated hub to the different levels, which is full of activities, mini games, and character progression. Comparing it with No More Heroes 3's open world shenanigans, and coming from the indie-styled TSA: Travis Strikes Again, Suda explains that they took a hard look at schedule and budget and looked for a way to change the game without just chopping huge parts. That's where the mixed-styles/retro 2D approach came in:

"Having a big open world, all 3D game these days, it's expensive and it's also very time consuming"

The spaceship hub is positioned as a dense "things to do" zone (mini games, upgrades, weapons, food, NPCs/stories), presented in a top-down pixel-art style contrasting with the 3D action. Importantly, Suda says the game was originally planned as mostly/all 3D, but about two years ago they reassessed schedule and budget and concluded an all-3D open-world approach wasn't efficient. Besides, the multi-style approach (retro segments, variety of visual styles) was chosen to fit the team's strengths, add variety/punch, and keep the project realistic without "just cutting corners."

Romeo is a Dead Man releases on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on February 11, and we've got much, much more about the game and from Suda-san and his past and future, in the full Gamereactor interview (the video available with local subtitles above).