Dragami Games has some surprising good news for their initial release, Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP.
As reported by Gematsu, Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP will now be releasing on September 12 in US and Europe. It will still be arriving in Asia, including Dragami’s native Japan, on September 26. While they didn’t explain the details here, Dragami was apparently able to speed up their launch in the West.
They also confirmed that the game will be prices at $ 44.99, across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.
As some fans and even media outlets still seem confused about this, Lollipop Chainsaw is no longer with Grasshopper Manufacture. It was one of several games the studio worked on when they were still under Kadokawa Games.
When Grasshopper Manufacture was sold to GungHo Online in 2013, they kept the rights to Shadows of the Damned, but not Lollipop Chainsaw. This is the reason that Grasshopper Manufacture was able to greenlight production of Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered, which is a remaster of the game to modern consoles.
As of 2021, Grasshopper Manufacture, and Shadows of the Damned, is owned by Netease Games. That’s the same Netease that released Naraka: Bladepoint, and are producing Where Winds Meet, as well as the big upcoming hero shooter, Marvel Rivals.
So what’s the deal with Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP and Dragami Games? Well, when the big media conglomerate Kadokawa closed down Kadokawa Games, the people in that company split off to launch their own new games studio, Dragami Games.
Dragami Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda actually put the work in to acquire the rights to Lollipop Chainsaw, and produced this remake. It seems for the purposes of IP ownership, Yasuda also had it clarified that Lollipop Chainsaw really was his idea from the onset.
While this clashes with the common knowledge that Grasshopper Manufacture head Suda51 was credited as creative director on Lollipop Chainsaw, it isn’t out of the question. It was only one of six games that Suda51 was credited on in 2012, and his role may not have been as big as it seemed back then.
Suda51 has also gone on record on a recent interview that he and Grasshopper Manufacture did not know about Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, and that he found out at the same time that most everyone else did. Yoshimi Yasuda is credited as Executive Producer for the original Lollipop Chainsaw release on MobyGames, and he continues to be producer today.
Regardless of the circumstances, there’s something special about both Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw coming back in 2024. It indicates that there really is something special about Grasshopper Manufacture’s oevre, that they’re worth revisiting all these years later.
