Grasshopper Manufacture has leaked what appear to be three upcoming projects, no platforms, just two trailers and some live gameplay.
We’ll get the obvious one out of the way. At the end of their Grasshopper Direct, there was a skit where they caught Grasshopper CEO Goichi Suda asleep in front of the sofa. Apparently he had been playing their latest game, and was asking if it was OK that they were already showing it.
So what do we see on Suda’s screen? A very brief screen showing a field and some UI, which then gets cut to a pause / menu screen. Apparently this game is being played in first person perspective, or Suda’s body is blocking our view. The pause / menu screen also seems to show the player’s character, but Grasshopper has scrambled that image out of view.
It’s a very intriguing tease, but unlike every other studio afraid of being accused of bullshots and the like, Grasshopper refuses to commit to platforms, release dates, or even the name of this game. So it will remain mostly a mystery until Grasshopper decides to show us everything.
For what it’s worth, Grasshopper showed two other pseudo-trailers in the Grasshopper Direct, which may be referring to one game, or three separate games. These pseudo-trailers come in the form of fake YouTube ads that supposedly interrupt your viewing of the Grasshopper Direct. All we can do is talk about the trailers and what they show.
The first trailer, Pistol Yakuza, looks like it’s for an upcoming grindhouse/direct to video yakuza action movie. The lead character is shown with blood all over him, crying about losing his girl, cat, and katana, and asking what he has. At the end of the trailer, he picks up his pistol and is shown shooting at something offscreen.
Pistol Yakuza is coming Summer 2163 to theatres and streaming, which is obviously fake because we might not even have streaming services in the year 2163 anymore. Anyway, this might just have been a fake trailer for fun, or a hint at an upcoming game. Pistol Yakuza certainly conceptually looks very similar to Suda’s action games.
The other trailer is for something called Electric Thunder Tiger 14, and it’s even more obtuse. What we are shown is animation of a man wearing a pseudo deep diving or astronaut suit with a glass helmet. He looks at what appears to be various trash flying through the air, and starts grinning widely, but is then kicked from the side by an unseen assailant and falls down.
Again, this could just be a small trailer they made for fun, or it could be a hint at a future game.
Grasshopper is known to have their fun, so you could watch the whole Grasshopper Direct and imagine other portions that could be suggesting even more games, or mean nothing at all. Given that they took the effort to make these two trailers at all, it was at least worth reporting on.
You can watch the Grasshopper Direct below. Skip to the end for the ‘off the cuff’ footage of their latest game and you can read about their noncommittal announcement regarding Shadows of the Damned Remastered.
