Japanese video game developers come in all shapes and sizes, but two of the most creative are without a doubt Goichi Suda (also known as Suda51) and Hidetaka Suehiro (also known as Swery65). These two developers have previously released games like No More Heroes and Deadly Premonition, which each gained cult followings in their own right. The pair revealed to IGN Japan that they wanted to begin work on a new horror game called Hotel Barcelona back in 2019, and now it appears that a trademark has been filed related to the project.
More recently in 2021, Suda reconfirmed the duo’s plans to create Hotel Barcelona, and a new trademark suggests that the project could be going ahead. The trademark was spotted by Videogameschronicle, and it shows that White Owls, the studio headed up by Swery himself, has registered two active trademarks in Japan. These are for the terms Hotel Barcelona and Death Game Hotel, and this happened on March 25 of this year. This is followed up by an international trademark being filed on October 27.
Video game companies filing trademarks for names is nothing new, and oftentimes it doesn’t necessarily mean that a studio is imminently about to produce a game related to that trademark. Sometimes, studios simply wish to retain the rights to a trademarked game name just in case they wish to use it in the future. With that in mind, it’s hard to say for certain whether this trademark confirms whether Suda51 and Swery65 have already started creating the new title, but perhaps there are some early developments happening behind the scenes.
When the two developers first talked to IGN Japan about the project, they gave away some key details about what players could eventually expect. They talked about using multiple timelines, an irredeemable evil main character, and the idea that the story would involve a murder mystery based in a hotel. It’s a game that the pair want to be easy to understand and play for gamers. Funnily, the pair also disclosed that they would be happy for a publisher like Devolver Digital to help them publish the game. Considering the varied titles that are published by Devolver, we would not surprised if this eventually happened.
Horror games have been going through a resurgence recently, and plenty of exciting Japanese-developed horror games are on the way. Capcom is hard at work on the remake of Resident Evil 4, while Konami recently announced multiple new games in the Silent Hill series that are being developed by a variety of developers. These include a remake of Silent Hill 2, a new narrative-based game called Silent Hill: Townfall, and a new title called Silent Hill F.
Hopefully, Suda51 and Swery65’s Hotel Barcelona can innovate in the horror genre if and when we see more of it in the future.
