White Owls Inc. has shown off a new trailer for the long-anticipated Hotel Barcelona, a collaboration between Deadly Premonition’s Swery65 and No More Heroes�Suda51. It’s, um, not looking so hot.

The trailer starts off by telling us that Hotel Barcelona is written and directed by Swery65 and “original idea�by Suda51, which could mean any number of things. Considering the premise involves facing off with a series of serial killers, you ca??n definitely ??locate Suda51’s idea.

I consider myself a fan of both Swery65 and Suda51, but this trailer is kind of repellent. The graphics have this ugly blurry look that reminds me of a Wii title, the animations are uneven, and the voice acting is a little concerning. The gameplay looks a little routine, though the idea of play?ing side-by-side w?ith your previous failed attempts is pretty cool. I’m interested to see how that turns out.

At least the HUD looks cool.

To be fair, most of Swery and Suda’s games are ugly. The actual gameplay an mechanics are typically a little shaky, as well. I prefer their approaches to storytelling, with each having the capacity to write extremely deep and unique characters. The trailer doesn’t really show Hotel Barcelona’s storytelling approach, nor do we see any real character interaction, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. It would be a real challenge for me not to play a Swery65 and Suda51 joint.

Hotel Barcelona is coming to Xbox, PS5, and PC sometime in 2024.

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Welcome to thee Hotel Bar-ce-lona...

Furthe??r fuel has been added to the rumor fire concerning Suda51, Swery65, and an as-yet-unannounced horror project allegedly involving both �As whispers persist that the developers may be joining forces for a grim new video game, some newly-filed trademarks add further possibility to the supposed p??roject.

As spotted by VGC, White Owls, (the studio helmed by Hidetaka “Swery 65�Suehiro), recently secured international trademarks for both "Hotel Barcelona" and "Death Game Hotel". Both terms had been previously secured for use in Japan back in March of this year, and while all has been quiet in regard to any such game, these new, ?international filings would suggest that the project is still at the forefront of the developers' minds.

"Hotel Barcelona" is, seemingly, a placeholder name for a project that Goichi "Suda51" Suda has wanted to develop alongside Swery65 for some time. The project was initially referenced during an IGN live stream back in 2019, where it came across as an improvised, pie-in-the-sky idea. Since then, however, various clues have pointed to the possibility that the game is, in fact, in development. Just last week, for example, a behind-the-scenes video shot at Suda's Grasshopper Manufacturer studio showed an artist working on some grotesque monsters.

?Regardless, both developers remain tight-lipped as to what Hotel Barcelona is, whether it is definitely in the works, or when we'll be hearing more about it. It's a tantalizing prospect, at any rate. We shall see.

New trademarks have been filed for the horror ga??me from Suda51 a?nd Swery65 [VGC]

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It's sandwich-makin' time

It's time to jump on your skateboard, grab your Sinner's Sandwich, and frame rate into oblivion, as Rising Star Games has announced that Swery65's tongue-in-cheek-but-also-actually-bad Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is now available on PC via the Steam Store.

As a quick refresher, Deadly Premonition 2 was the long-awaited follow-up to the notoriously goofy 2010 release, Deadly Premonition. The sequel features a dual storyline that sees put-upon investigator Francis Zach/York Morgan investigating a Bostonian?? murder in the past, while being interrogated over said case and its horrendous aftermath in the present. Guide our hero in past and present as they uncover the sinister psychological torment that lies beneath the surface of the sublime Le Carré.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSy6-23ihEQ

While Deadly Premonition 2 features the strange dialogue, goofy action sequences, and overall sense of compelling weirdness that is the series' trademark, it was also lambasted at launch for its myriad technical issues, some of which went beyond the realm of parody and into poor value. Unfortunately, according to reports in the Steam forums, it seems that this new port carries its own weight in both new an?d old technical issues, (though it seems that the frame rate issues have been fixed).

In true Deadly Premonition style, it seems that this release is really just for those who have no problem dropping cash on irony, warts and all. Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.? The Steam port is being sold at a discounted price until June 18.

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Destiny 2 and The Good Life are also on deck

Xbox and Turtle Rock Studios have announced that gory multiplayer shooter Back 4 Blood will be set to spill the claret on Xbox Game Pass from day one. The Left 4 Dead successor leads a new lineup?? of titles joining the subscription ??service in October.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fpkwFpPyjA

Back 4 Blood will arrive on Xbox Game Pass October 12, day-and-date with its launch on PC and PlayStation platforms. And it's not the only shooter coming to the service that day, as Bungie's sci-fi expansion Destiny 2: Beyond Light will also be made available to Game Pass subscribers. So?? whether you're in the mood for blasting ethereal aliens or the urban undead, next week ??will get that itch scratched.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4y6GQK0XI

Just two days later, on October 14, Game Pass will welcome Twice Different's creepy-but-colorful roguelike, Ring of Pain, as well as Exor Studios base-building mech battler The Riftbreaker. For those of you who prefer your murder and mayhem on the quainter side, then mark your calendars for October 15, which sees the long-awaited arrival of the mysterious "debt management" title, The Good Life. Yes, Swery's tale of moggies, money, and murder is finally ready to roll.

When you consider that Bandai Namco's "brainpunk" RPG Scarlet Nexus and Spike Chunsoft's acclaimed A.I. The Somnium Files joined the service just last week �there's no denying that October is a pretty solid month for Xbox Game Pass. Oh, and these titles will replace Heave Ho, Katana Zero, Scourgebringer, Tales of Vesperia HD, and The Swords of Ditto, all of which will leave the service?? on October 15.

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There's a demo available right now too

If you are a multi-console owner who's been wondering which platform you should get Swery's The Good Life on, I think White Owls and Playism just made that decision a lot easier to make. As announced this morning, The Good Life will be available on Xbox Game Pass when it launches on October 15. The debt-management RPG/life-sim mystery adventure game has hit a lot of bumps in the road on its way to release, and I'm just so happy that its actual debut is only a few more weeks away. With plenty of other titles on my plate right now, I am fine waiting for 15 more days, but if you want to try it out right now, a demo is available.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4y6GQK0XI

With the addition of games like The Good Life or Scarlet Nexus or even Marvel's Avengers, Xbox Game Pass continues to prove itself as one of the better deals in gaming. As somebody who greatly misses the ability to rent games since going all digital (pours one out for his defunct Gamefly account), I appreciate?? just how many different games I've been able to ??experience this year on my Series S thanks to Game Pass.

Of course, if you don't have an Xbox, The Good Life will launch on PC, PS4, and Switch on October 15 as well. Preorders for the game are available on Xbox and Switch, and if you're a PC game??r, the demo that's on Xbox right now will be made avail?able tomorrow as part of the Steam Next Festival.

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Welcome to The Good Life

It's been a long time coming, but this fall, The Good Life will finally b?e in town. The latest from Hidetaka Suehiro, or "Swery," and the team at White Owls hits on Oct. 15, 2021.

To coincide with the news, publisher Playism and White Owls put out a new trailer, highlighting what The Good Life is. Playing as photographer? Naomi, you can run around the world taking pictures and interacting with locals, while also investigating the town's m??ysteries. Especially the whole cats-and-dogs transformation thing.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4y6GQK0XI

The Good Life has been circling around for some time, with a relaunched Kickstarter and a few delays, the most recent one pushing it into this fall window. It's been a bit of a road to get t??o this release date.

That said, it's also looking pretty interesting. Going back through old trailers and screenshots, the difference between each iteration of The Good Life that's publicly surfaced is pretty notable.

It's also a good time for photography sim-style games in general. Games like New Pokemon Snap and Umurangi Generation have really reignited my interest in virtual snapshots, and the prom?ise of a mystery to solve and some weirdness to?? work through certainly intrigues me.

With just a few weeks to go now until its new launch date, I'm sure longtime backers are looking forward to seeing what The Good Life is like too. We'll get some answers when The Good Life hits Nintendo Swi?tch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam o??n Oct. 15.

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'This is not my game'

We love Swery65 and Suda51, two entirely different people out there making their own unique brand of video games that are fueled by their individual personalities ??and pass??ions.

All the same, these two noteworthy Japanese game creators with numbers in t?heir names are often lumped together by fans �sort of like a "peanut butter and chocolate" situation. They both make "weird games" for weirdos like us to enjoy, and I can easily ?see how someone might mistakenly type out the wrong name in an online conversation.

On that longwinded note, while we continue to wait for the ultimate Swery x Suda team-up, here's a funny moment that went down at a signing in Moscow.

Swery was in town for an award at the Russian International Horror Film Festival, and during an autograph event, someone handed him a fresh copy of the just-released No More Heroes 3. ??He responded in the best �a??nd most endearing �way possible: by placing his signature underneath a permanent note that "This is not my game."

//twitter.com/Swery65/status/1432387984075067398

The Darick Robertson cover art illustr?ation with FU's rage face only makes this funnier.

Without knowing the full context of the Moscow signing, I'm hopeful the fan meant well, and was fully aware of the (potentially low-key disrespectful) autograph request they were making. If so, and the exchange was all in good fun, the race is on to seek out Suda and convince him to sign a copy of Deadly Premonition to complete this cursed set.

As folks pointed out in the aftermath of the tweet, this same sort of "wrong game" autograph scenario has happened before with John Romero and Doom 3.

[Update: The owner of the hilariously autographed No More Heroes 3 (and also the person with No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise) both know what's up. Thanks, @TheDulberth.]

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The new footage suggests a repeat of Deadly Premonition 2

The long road leading up to the release of The Good Life, the next game from Deadly Premonition director Swery, doesn't feel like it's getting any shorter – but it is. A bit. The game is now being published by The Irregular Corporation (Murder By Numbers) and it's aiming for a summer 2021 launch.

This latest footage looks further along than our last check-in, but the frame rate is struggling.

The Good Life is a slice-of-life adventure game about an American photographer caught up in a strange rural English town where people – the protagonist included – can transform into animals. If you're the type of player who enjoys really set?tling into a new place and poking around, you might be down.

As a game, I don't have high expectations for The Good Life. As an outlet for Swery's creative characters, worlds, and stories, I'm far more interested. I just don't want a repeat of Deadly Premonition 2. There's "for??givable" and "endearing" jank, and then there's "so busted it's nearly unplayable"?? jank.

I'm not sure what to make of this game, and I probably won't be u?ntil I'm lit??erally playing it.

@Swery65 [Twitter]

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Team Pacey all the way

Development on the Fig-failure-turned-Kickstarter-success The Good Life is humming along toward its eventual release on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. In the latest update on the title, producer Swery gave us a listen to the official theme song for the title.  Recent releases from the Deadly Premonition creator have featured some amazing soundtracks with excellent original songs, and "The Good Life" from The Bad Lives appears to be no except?ion.

Oh yeah. That is definitely a theme song to a long-lost WB teen drama about white ??kids with problems in some affluent town in New Hampshire. That is a song that should be the backing track to every moment Meredith Grey watches the patient she got to know throughout the episode get wheeled off to a sur??gery they'll never survive.

Swery's The Good Life&nbs?p;will come out eventually, but until tha??t day arrives, at least we'll have the music.

The Good Life Development News - Sept. 2020 [Kickstarter]

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The first patch popped up today on Nintendo Switch

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise got a patch today to fix bugs, glitches, the absurd frame rate, and some problematic content, but the game's post-release update plans have only just begun.

According to creator Swery, today's patch is only a partial fix for Deadly Premonition 2's poo?r frame rate, and the team at Toybox Inc. plans to "gradually improve it." He also commented on the revised script – specifically, its portrayal of a trans character that he says "might have hurt transgender people."

"The scenario where the problem occurred has been fixed," Swery said in a statement posted to Twitter. "I didn't change the important point of the story of [Deadly Premonition 2], and I was able to make changes only where I wanted to make corrections. Therefore, I am confident that fans who were worried t??hat 'this fix may change the essence ??of the game' will be reassured."

It's unclear if scenes or dialogue will see further tweaks in the future, but as one player put it on Reddit, the ??"cleaned u?p" lines – some edits, some outright removals – were "kinda awkwardly handled."

Another player pointed out t??hat wi?th this first patch applied, "York's skateboard conversations are no longer activated automatically" and "there is now a button prompt to trigger them. Still seems to pull from the whole pool, but at least we won't have to hear 'This is the deep south' as often!"

An inverted camera option is also on the way, according to producer Tomio Kanazawa.

Having not played Deadly Premonition 2 yet but watched en?ough of the hilariously long opener to be stoked about Francis Dank Morgan, I'm happy to contin?ue waiting while these fixes settle into place.

@Swery65 [Twitter] [Via ResetEra]

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Bless

Folks who love Deadly Premonition the most will tell you that it's rife with technical issues, but those quirks only make it more lovable. Most fans were also relatively forgiving of the game's less-than-ideal social messaging, particularly ar??ound concepts of gender. Not to spoil it, but there is at least one gender non-conforming character in the game that, while sometimes displayed in a sympathetic light, still plays into more than a few negative stereotypes. 

Many guessed that The Missing, a newer game by Deadly Premonition's creator, was an apology for Deadly Premonition in that regard. By most accounts, it does a fantastic job with trans representation. That had fans of Swery, the director of both games, hopeful that Deadly Premonition 2 would follow a similar trend. Again, no spoilers, but suffice it to say?? most of those?? fans are disappointed.

In fact, the way protagonist Francis York Morgan talks about trans people – and later, to one trans person in particular, who features heavily in Deadly Premonition 2 – almost comes off as self-parody. It's one thin??g when this series is intentionally or unintentionally "bad" for a laugh, but when it comes to ?the game's depiction of this marginalized population, many are not amused.

In as strong a display of empathy as I've ever seen from a game director, Swery has announced that?? he's planning to consult with advisers, rewrite these parts of the story, and patch the edits into the game.

Tha?t's... unheard of. Most would just apologize and move on, but it's clear that Swery really wants his game to express his earnest compassion for all people, and he wouldn't be satisfied with leaving things as they are. Personally, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, so the idea of seeing it get any new and improved content is music to my ears.

@Swery65 [Twitter]

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Press FK to pay respects

Never in a million years would I have thought that Deadly Premonition would get a sequel — or that I'd get to review it.

Here we go.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing In Disguise (Switch)
Developer: Toybox Inc.
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Released: July 10, 2020
MSRP: $49.99

If you haven't played the original yet, stop what you're doing and pick it up. Or maybe don't. Such is the conundrum of the Deadly Premonition...series, as of this week. Like your average David Lynch film (I'm utterly abusing the word "average" with that link, my apologies Zach), Deadly Premonition isn't for everyone. It's weird. It's wild. It's possibly da?ted. That mentality hasn't changed much in the sequel, for better or worse.

This isn't your typical "high polished AAA or even AA release." It never once claimed to be. This is a messy, muddy Switch exclusive: just the way a lot of us like our Swery games. But it's going to be a tougher sell this time around unless you're hyper-invested in Deadly Premonition already. No one expected that the original would be Twin Peaks in disguise. It kind of crept up on everyone, with no Nintendo Direct hype behind it. The game just...?existed. This time, nearly everyone saw it co?ming, and there's expectations attached to that.

In my walkabout quest to navigate all this, I was lost at sea and let the trashy waters of Deadly Premonition 2 wash over me — after all, the phrase "harem of bikini queens" is uttered mere seconds in. There's absolutely no option but to be pulled under ?the current of that body of water. Thi?s surreal disconnect is doubled-down upon in the sequel with the concept of two narratives: one serving as a prequel (with the original's Francis York Morgan), and the other taking place in a more modern setting (with protagonist Aaliyah Davis). I don't need to tell you that it's a roller coaster how they wax, wane, and blend as the game progresses.

It's a very dialogue-heavy game. You'll spend a lot of time looking at evidence and chatting with suspects and townfolk. But all the while, you'll continue to get sucked into the bizarre world of Deadly Premonition. This universe has roots at this point. Lore, if you will. And? a lot of York's background and motivations are explored in the sequel. 

I wholly respect this route, as it allows DP to move away from the "inspired by" motif and into its own territory. York is still charming as hell, and his insane-yet-calm demeanor is incredible to witness as it plays out; as are his opinions on film (like how, after freshly watching Michael Bay's The Island, he claimed it would set the bar for action for decades to come — he'd be a killer online cri??tic).&nbs??p;It doesn't have as many explosive moments as the first (Swery offloaded a few narrative loads already), but they are present.

But while the story conceit takes a certain kind of patience and open-mindedness to enjoy (shots fired), the actual gameplay is much more down-to-earth. Like the original, this is an open-world joint (Le Carré, which is "just outside of New Orleans," is the setting), complete with a skateboarding traversal system and minigames dotting the landscape. This is Swery to a tee, but I also get massive Clover vibes with Deadly Premonition 2. Running around the sunny ("seari??ng light" as York calls it) Le Carré is equal parts tedium and joy.

Riding around on a skateboard beats the hell out of driving that car in the original, but it's still trying at the best of times. (Thankfully, fast travel is unlocked quickly enough.) The time mechanic returns from Deadly Premonition, which means a lot of waiting around, going to sleep at your hotel, or using plenty of cigarette items to advance the clock. There's even a few good old fa??shioned ??vague scavenger hunts that are going to elicit myriad walkthroughs for years to come.

Exploration is also hampered by the finer technicalities. I wasn't kidding about things being rough! You know those "sub 60 FPS: unacceptable!" people? They're going to hate this. While the character models pop a bit due to their uncanny designs and cartoonish accents, the framerate is often all over the place, especially in portable mode and particularly outside. While moving about indoors is respectably playab?le, all bets are off when you hit the?? great outdoors. At times, it can be like watching a slideshow (I also had one crash total to boot). Toybox Inc. doesn't have the best track record for technical stability and they didn't magically mend that reputation with this project.

Having played games since the '80s, this is jank I can deal with. The PS1-era was rife with these kinds of bug-ridden fairweather adventures that I had some of the best times of my life with. But you might be thinking: it's not 1995, it's 2020! And I realize that. Do not go into the sequel assuming that a decade later, Swery and his team made it a priority to eliminate jank. This is a late-stage PS2 game running on a non-slim PS2. Combat is still a broke-ass Resident Evil 4, a??nd I'm not talking about a remaste?r: I mean broke-ass circa 2005. When the framerate for your loading screen is more stable than the actual game, you know you're in for a wild ride.

It's a weird game to review because so many people are going to expect drastically different things. How many games force you to shave and send your clothes up for dry cleaning? How many times can you say that you hexed an old widow so that you could go bowling in the past...oh say decade or so? Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is another trip. You've been warned.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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If you're worried about how it runs, there's a glimmer of hope

We know what we're getting with Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise, and I've accepted that fate, but maybe some of its many technical setbacks can be overcome. I'm not asking for perfection – this is Deadly Premonition, ??you know? – but even a slightl?y better frame rate could go a long way.

Following a bit of back-and-forth about the game's post-launch update p??lans, here's the latest word.

Thank you all for your feedback regarding #DeadlyPremonition2!

We would like to? officially clarify that the development team are constantly working on improving the title and patches a?re in the works.

More news soon!

— Rising Star Games (@RisingStarGames) July 9, 2020

As publisher Rising Star Games puts it, the developers at Toybox Inc. are "constantly working on improving the title and patches are in the works." It's a vague reassurance, but a reassurance all the same. I figure plenty of you are going to show up on day one regardless. I would, but July is packed.

If you're wondering about the bowling alley, listen to this important message from Swery.

The post ‘Patches are in the works’ for Deadly Premonition 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Trouble tracks me down

The Le Carré tourism board does exactly half of a good job selling this quaint little town as a relaxing getaway destination. I was sold right up until "Everyone's as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine." The Casa Pineapple might be enough for me to throw caution to the wind.

The population is about to grow a little bit as Special Agent York comes to town. But, the population will subsequently drop as townsfolk are gruesomely murdered and fed to alligators. That's the circle of life, I guess; York show?s up and strange killings overrun the city.

Deadly Premonition 2 is only two weeks out, launching on July 10 on Switch. We're assured some bonkers writing and ridiculous overacting??. Apart from that, no one really knows what to expect. It's gonna be a wild ride one way or another.

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Find the Hidden Tape

We're less than a month out from the release of bonkers mystery title Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise. Thanks to a new update on the Nintendo.co.uk, more information has been revealed regarding the upcoming sequel's intriguing "Two C??ases, One Mystery" narrative??.

The first case is set in 2005, (five years b??efore the events of the original game), and sees Special Agent York teaming with the local sheriff's daughter, Patricia Woods, to investigate a grisly multiple murder case in the town of Le Carre, nestled deep in the Louisiana outback. Meanwhile, in 2019, FBI agent Aaliyah Davis and veteran detective Simon Jones are looking into some strange disappearances in the heart of Boston. Could these cases and characters be somehow linked? Well, It's pretty obvious that they are, but it will be the player's task - as both York and Aaliyah - to piece together a grim mystery 14 years in the making.

Fortunately, it's not all corpses and poorly-made sandwiches, as York is able to take time out to enjoy some of?? Le Carre's local colour?. Not only will there be a whole host of side-cases to complete, but York can also visit the local bowling alley, take a ride through 'gator-filled swampland, skim stones across the river or, naturally, go skateboarding, You're through, Hawk.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is something of an anomaly. With any new release, expectations are hopeful that the final product will turn out awesome. But the Deadly Premonition name now carries with it a certain, well, crappiness. As such it almost feels like developer Toybox may have to intentionally find a sweet spot between being Terrible/Good and Terrible/Terrible. Is that harder than simply making your game "great"? Possibly. But either way,?? all eyes will be on this very strange sequel come launch day.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise launches on Nintendo Switch July 10.

De?adly Premonition 2 details story, character?s, and activities [Gematsu]

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Before and after

Fill the thermos with piping hot joe, we're in for some long summer nights. Come July, we're back on the case, trying to solve more bizarre serial murders that stretch across America and across time.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is set for a July 10 launch exclusively on Nintendo Switch at a price of $50. The follow-up to 2010's legendary (and, uhh, divisive) Deadly Premonition, this entry acts as both a sequel and a prequel. The present-day story has FBI agent Aaliyah Davis hot on the trail of some murders in Boston. However, these are connected to killings committed in Louisianan town Le Carré 15 ye?ars ag?o. Familiar face special agent Francis York Morgan heads up that investigation.

The case-cracking goes with a side of sweet kickflips. Le Carré can be traversed while on skateboard, and customization includes "[upgrading] your skateboard for improved speed and landing more difficult tricks." There are mini-games too which include bowling, "bayou ride," and a skateboard challenge. Get hopped up on coffee and do a 900 Christ Air over the all?igator pit.

For those who missed the reveal last September, Swery is prominently involved, serving as both the writer and director. With that key piece of informa?tion, you know what to expect: The unexpectabl?e. 

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Sharapova sighting!

Remember The Good Life? The next game from Deadly Premonition and D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die mast??ermind Swery? It... kinda slipped my mind. And by "kinda," I mean "one-hundred percent."

The idyllic adventure game about turning into a cat or dog, paying off debts, and solving a murder in a small English town made an appearance during today's Indie World Showcase. White Owls and Grounding are bringing The Good Life to Nintendo Switch, in addition to the previously announced PS4 and PC versions. The studios haven't committed to a release date yet – it's ??just "2020" for now.

The?? new gameplay footage is a step above what I've seen before. Sheep riding, anyone?

The post Swery’s The Good Life is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2020 appeared first on Destructoid.

An arm and a leg

The Missing: J.J. Macfield?? and the Island of Memories wasn't 2018's best game, but it might've been 2018's darkest and most impactful game. Most everyone who spent time with Swery65's overlooked and underappreciated The Missing found that ?it left some sort of mark on them. It tackles extremely sensitive subject matter in a frank way that's both harrowing and ??sympathetic.

Originally digital-only, J.J.'s story now comes with some tangible accoutrements. Thanks to Limited Run Games, The Missing is getting a physical editio?n on PS4 a?nd Switch. Here's the product shot that shows everything included in the $80 limited collector's edition:

It comes with:

• The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories
• A plushie of F.K. -- a plushie in-game of a deer-cat hybrid thing that texts J.J throughout the entirety of the game
• A Sleepy Donuts stress ball
• A pair of Sleepy Donuts magnets
• A sticker sheet

The limited collector's edition goes on sale on January 31 at 10am eastern; a second batch will go on sale on January 31 at 6pm eastern. It seems as though a simple physical edition that includes only the game will also be sold, judging by this tweet. If this is the case, there's no price listed.

If having a physical edition of The Missing interests you, don't wait too long on January ??31. Limit??ed Run lives up to its name, and this will only be sold for two weeks.

@LimitedRunGames [Twitter]

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You can check out any time you like...

Cheeky scamp Suda51, well known for his stylistic and esoteric video games, rang in the new year with a little tease for his somewhat improv-conceived horror title Hotel Barcelona.

Literally brainstormed during a livestream with IGN and fellow au?teur Swery65, the developer duo put together a rough ??idea for a new horror title, one that is now, apparently, on the books and in development. According to?? Suda's New Year tweet, it will launch in 2021, with Devolver Digital reportedly set to publish.

Given the shaky, out-of-the-blue design and collaboration, it's still quite possible that nothing is fully set in stone for the mysterious new title. But no-one should be surprised if Hotel Barcelona has gone from an idle conversation to a fully?-fledged, in-development title. Afte?r all, it fits Suda's off-the-wall "brand".

Hotel Barcelona is in development for a ?2021 launch. I mean, I guess...

Suda51 takes to Twitter to tease Hotel Barcelona rel??ease date [DualShockers]

â”â”â”┓â”â”â”┓â”â”â”┓┠┓
â”—â”┓┃┃â”┓┃┗â”┓┃┃ ┃
â”â”┛┃┃┃┃┃â”â”┛┃┃ ┃
Hotel Barcelona
┃â”â”┛┃┃┃┃┃â”â”┛┃ ┃
┃┗â”┓┃┗┛┃┃┗â”┓┃ ┃
â”—â”â”┛┗â”â”┛┗â”â”┛┗ â”› //t.co/Jm8gADpuIE

— SUDA51/須田剛一 (@suda_51) December 31, 2019

The post Suda51 teases 2021 release wi??ndow for Hotel Barcelona appeared first on Destructoid.

How will they top this Howell?

There are basically two kinds of No More Heroes fans. There's the group who loves it all, and then the people who totally worship the first game, then just sort of tolerates everything else. Personally, I'm in the first camp. The original was a trendsetter that is yet to be replaced, but it feels cold and detached at times, making replays a bit icy. The sequel is a much hotter ride, emotionally and otherwise. Travis actually cares about a few other people by the end of No More Heroes 2, which was a first for him at the time. 

One of those people is Kimmy Howell, a British high schooler who dreams of loving ??Travis, and also of beheading him with her double-ended lightsaber. In some ways, she could be considered a prequel to Juliet Starling of Lollipop Chainsaw, Suda51's best-selling game, except instead of killing zombies, she tries to kill you. The formula of budding innocence with bad-girl bloodlust is often a crowd-pleaser, and at this point, no one knows th??at better than G?rasshopper Manufacture. 

Platinum Games is no stranger to violent cheesecake either. Bayonetta, their unofficial mascot, follows similar trends as Kimmy and Juliet, though her murderous intent is more pointed at angels and demons than regular folks. That otherworldly feel comes across in this new look for Kimmy Howell from Bayonetta character designer Mari Shimazaki. From the looks of it, the seven years time jump since No More Heroes 2 has been kind to the would-be assassin. She's all grown up now, her glasses replaced with contacts, her frumpy school uniform swapped for a glamorous mirror-ball get up, and her legs long enough to make up 75% of her total body length. That's either inspiring or off-putting, depending on who you ask. 

This art was revealed in the same IGN Japan live stream where Suda and Swery (director of Deadly Premonition and The Missing) announced that they are working on a new game called Hotel Barcelona, and by "working" I of course mean "drunk dialing various friends and asking them if they will make the game with them??." They make the game design look so fun, don't they?

Suda also revealed not one, not two, but three new designs for Destroyman, a boss from No More Heroes 1 and 2. I've always thought he was a metaphor for some of the more two-faced, ugly sides of the United States, so seeing him grow an ac?tual monster face out of his torso makes sense in a Suda sort of ??way. 

The voice actors for Kimmy Howell and Destroyman are expected to return for No More Heroes 3, which is reportedly about 50% complete and plann??ed for release in 2020. We'?ve got a lot to look forward to next year!

The post Bayonetta artist gives a lightsaber wielding schoolgirl a new look for N??o More ??Heroes 3 appeared first on Destructoid.

'Hotel Barcelona' is inspired by Twin Peaks and Siren

[Update: The duo shared their ideas on an IGN Japan livestream, and the concept seems wild. Devolver Digital will publish the title, which is aiming for a million-dollar budget with inspirations from Twin Peaks and Siren. Keiichiro Toyama of Silent Hill fame wa??s asked via text message if he wanted to work on ?the game, and Suda got a "yes" response. Right now the working title is "Hotel Barcelona."]

No More Heroes designer Suda51 and Deadly Premonition mastermind Swery65 teaming up together in any form, even if it's the most minimal of collaborations – you love to see it. According to IGN Japan, the cr??eators have pla??ns for a "Travis Monday Nightro 2" stream at 7:00pm JST / 3:00am PT on October 23.

What's on the a?genda? Details about a "secret project," according to the outlet.

That's precise?ly vague enough for me to be interested but not so invested that I'm staying up late. For those of you who live i?n a more cooperative time zone, you can expect to see an English summary.

Suda and Swery have expressed their desire to work together before, and it felt like their paths were bound to cross. Hopefully this mystery project only marks the start of?? an enduring partnership.

The post Suda51 and Swery are teaming up for a horror game appeared first on Destructoid.

Grab your Sinner's Sandwiches

Publisher Toybox has released a patch for the Nintendo Switch port of Swery's weird adventure game Deadly Premonition Origins. The fix hopes to take care of some frustrating sound issues that have plagued the port since its surprise release la??s?t week.

"I’m sorry for your patience and would like to thank everyone who kindly reported it to us. Hope you enjoy the stay in Greenvale," said the publisher on Twitter, referencing the strange and sleep??y suburb that plays host to some grisly and bizarre murders. Unfortunately, while the replies note that the sound problems are much improved from their original state, the game seemingly remains in a somewhat glitchy state. Toybox has noted they will continue their efforts to fix these remaining woes.

Deadly Premonition Origins is available now on Nintendo Switch. A sequel, A Blessing in Disguise, is currently in development, with release expected in 2020.

We TOYBOX have just released the patch to fix the sound errors for Deadly Premonition Origins. I’m sorry for your patience and would like to thank everyone who kindly reported it to us.
Hope you enjoy the stay in Greenvale. pic.twitter.com/fRMm2ZygTN

— 金沢å三男＠TOYBOX (@TomioKanazawa) September 10, 2019

The post Deadly Premonition Origins sound patch i??s now live, but work continues on Switch port appeared first on Destructoid.

But Swery says please stop asking him to fix it

It was definitely one of the weirder reveals during last week's Direct, when Nintendo announced that the delightfully wonky mystery game Deadly Premonition was not only getting a sequel, but that the origi?nal 2010 release was re-releasing on Nintendo Switch.

But unfortunately, it seems that the Switch port of the re-titled Deadly Premonition Origins has some issues, and not just the ones naturally inherent in Swery's survival horror adventure. As noted by our own Adzuken while playing, there are a myriad of sporadic sound problems plaguing the new port, ranging from missing effects, to dialogue and music dropping out at random. While Deadly Premonition made something of a name for itself with its janky gameplay, I'm pretty sure that these new sound?? issues aren't an expected part of the "experience".

Still, help is on the way, according to Swery, who recently put out a tweet apologizing for the state of the port ??and noting that publisher Toybox will announce an update to fix these audio issues. Swery also took the time to remind fans that he isn't responsible for support enquires and that he is unable to fix the bugs himself. Hopefully we'll hear from Toybox soon, and then you can all continue to bizarre journey into Greenvale.

Swery notes publisher looking i??nto Deadly Premonition port i?ssues [Twitter]

Sorry for bad porting of Deadly Premonition Origins 😥😥😥

TOYBOX (Publisher) told me that they will announce about Patch ASAP.
Please wait for that.#deadlypremonition#DeadlyPremonitionorigins pic.twitter.com/CxYZVE5EK2

— HidetakaSwerySueHERO (@Swery65) September 5, 2019

The post Patch incoming for Deadly ??Premonition Origins sound woes appeared first on Destructoid.

Fur real

Swery's next game, The Good Life, promises nocturnal feline and canine adventures. That town gets w?ild and adorable at nightfall. But, we'll have to wait a little longer for the sun to set.

In a Kickstarter update, Swery reveals that The Good Life has been pushed from the fourth quarter of 2019 to spring 2020. The reasoning is the same perfectly-acceptable logic that accompanies most delays. Swery best sums it up by saying "We only came to the decision due to prioritizing ?the quality of the game above all else."

And, as always, that's fine. Take your time, release the game when it's ready. The added time does allow for some improvements, though. Swery points out that the visuals are significantly more detailed and the map has grown in size. Purrfect. Get them kittens l??ookin' as sharp as possible.

The Good Life Development News - July 2019 / The Good Life é–‹発状æ³ã€€2019å¹´7月 [Kickstarter]

The post Not the cat’s pajamas! The Good Life pushed back to 2020 appeared first on Destructoid.

Death, dismemberment, and demons, all just in time for Halloween

According to Irish folklore, Samhain is the day on the calendar when doorways between the land of the living and the land of the dead and other regions of the supernatural open at their widest. Over time, the day morphed into what we now call Halloween, a holiday where children's minds are filled with thoughts of monsters while they stuff their mouths with candy that will eventually kill their bodies. It is also the night when the most people on Earth can be found wearing slutty Luigi. The Yin and Yang, life and death relationship between teeth-rottin??g, blood sugar-spiking candy, and the horny Mario Bros. are just part of what makes this such a special time of ye?ar. 

If you're a Switch owner and you want to celebrate the day in a more off-beat way, these five new-ish games (most of which are also on PC) may do the "trick." Unlike most conventional horror stories, these titles don't always work hard to make you fear death. Instead, they allow the player to engage in contemplative, sometimes empowering relationships with the end of their lives, making them a perfect fit for Crom Cruach's big party. 

Pinstripe 

I was not expecting much out of this game, but it really blew me away with its writing and voice acting. It's not clear that any of the characters in Pinstripe are alive for any of our time with them, but they really come to life emotionally, especially Bo, your three-year-old daughter who faces a fate worse than death for most of your adventure. The game is about trying to save her from Pinstripe, a shadowy, devilish man who wants her for himself. It's uncomfortable stuff, but never exploitative. It's impressive how close the narrat??ive comes to dir??ectly addressing serious topics like alcoholism and child abuse while never veering into territory that I'd hide from a ten-year-old. 

The game's puzzles are more hit or miss. They range from short re-appropriations of Flappy Bird to hidden object hunts straight out of Highlights magazine, though they're all tailor fit for the narrative. There are also some limited-scope action sequences, usually involving shooting something with a slingshot or jumping on a dog with a big butt. They all range from fine-to-fun, but it's the Burton-esque art direction, unsettling use of By The Light Of The Silvery Moon, and underlying themes of paternal guilt and addiction that really make this one work. It's a rated-T 2D Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for the modern era. 

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories 

As Chris said in his review, there is a lot more to The Missing than you might glean from just the trailers. I've heard some people say that the game looks like another dread-filled 2D platformer in the style of Limbo or Inside, where grisly shock-value deaths lie around every corner, except that this time it's an attractive young woman who gets repeatedly massacred. That's not entirely untrue, but one of the things that makes The Missing special is the way it turns player motivations?? on their head, sometimes literally. Instead of wanting to run away from having your skull caved in or your legs cut off, you must run into these brutal attacks in order to progress, and it hurts every time. 

Hurting herself is the only way for J.J. to save someone very close to her. In that way, The Missing forces the player to alternate between the roles of protector, victimizer, and victim on a constant cycle, and that's all just in relation to controlling the game's protagonist. It's extremely intense, which makes me all the more thankful that the carnage is broken up by the occasional bursts of surreal comedy and in-game text messages that feel very real. Despite some issues with wonky physics and uneven difficulty curves, The Missing is a must-play game for fans of body horror, survivor stories, and anyone who knows what it's?? like to be hated just f??or being yourself.

Black Bird 

This new Fantasy Zone-meets-Metal Slug shmup from the mind of Yoshiro Kimura (Dandy Dungeon, Rule of Rose, No More Heroes, Little King's Story) is also about a girl who dies and comes back again and again, but unlike in The Missing, the violence here is rarely masochistic. Instead of coming back broken and bloody, the star of Black Bird reanimates as a ghostly raven's head who wreaks havoc on everything she sees. The message is also a little more difficult to parse. Do all the soldier-pe??asants look like Mario because the game is about struggling indie devs who want to let loose on the mindless mascot-worshiping consumer culture that often leaves them ignored? Would the world be better off if the spoiled innocence of nature rose up in a rage and destroyed mankind and all its environment-poisoning technology? Which has more of a right to exist, the vengeance of a dead child that left the world in ruin, or the lives of apathetic bystanders who did nothing but watch as that sa?me child died in the streets?

I don't have answers to those questions, but I do know that Black Bird makes it very fun to blow up things, and its soundtrack is already one of my favorite game scores ever. It's a gibberish opera sung by passionate Muppets the likes of which we haven't heard since LocoRoco, and better yet, many enemy spawn events are tied to the choral beats. This inherently fun fusion of sound and action combined with non-linear progression and a copiously deep combo system makes replaying the eight levels (four in the main game, fo??ur in new game plus) a pleasure to blast through every time. Though the game is technically pretty short, it has tons of secrets, unlockables, and random events to help every apocalyptic round of destruction feel fresh.

Friday The 13th: Killer Puzzle 

Yes, believe it or not, this makes the fourth game to release on Switch this month where you play as some form of a dead person. This time though, the rotten face you take on will probably look more familiar, despite the fact that it's hidden behind an adorable hockey mask. Like in the films from which he hails, Jason Voorhees is out for revenge again, but this time his murder spree takes place in a series of human jigsaw-like puzzles. Instead of movie pieces around a board, you move Jason, who's basically the Superman of the slasher world; impossibly strong, able to move into your personal space in an instant, and vulnerable to very few obstacles. In this case, his forms of kryptonite include lakes, bear traps, and even getting arrested by the cops. Jason may be a mass murderer, but when it comes to in?teracting with the police, he's downright polite. 

Those things rarely slow Jason down though. His main problem here is, he can't walk diagonally, and he can only stop moving when he hits a wall or someone to kill. That can make it hard to stroll up and decapitate a camper who's hiding in a corner down by a bear trap next to the lake. While the first 1??0 stages or so are a little too easy, the next 100+ more than make up for it with smart design and satisfying solutions. The dev??s also worked all the DLC content from the Steam build into the Switch port with more natural, in-game unlocks. Now new versions of Jason are accessed via progressing through various modes and entering secret codes. That includes the return of the NES's green and purple Jason to Nintendo consoles, which is a hallmark event for anyone who grew up with that particular iteration of our illustrious drowned boy.

Streets of Red: DDD 

This may be the only game on the list where you play as a living person, but don't you worry, it's still got plenty of reanimated corpses to play around with. In fact, there's at least one boss that bears more than a striking resemblance to the previously mentioned Voorhees child, though this mama's boy is more of a parody and less of direct representation. He's just one of the many satirical tributes to horror film icons. You could almost think of the game as co-op horror Smash Bros., as it has similarly simple inputs, but with a crossover of game character??s mixed in with the lookalikes of The Demogorgon, Freddy, Colossus Titan, and the one who scares me most of all, none other than Jim Sterling.

We also just received word that the game is about t?o get a whole lot bigger. As you can see in the trailer above, it's getting a free update, tentatively set to go live on Halloween. The patch includes a good amount of new content, including new bosses, language options, and the implementation of online leaderboards, all alongside a temporary price drop.

I've helped advise the creator of Streets of Red on various aspects of the Switch port for a while now, so any praise from me may come off as biased, but hey, I'm not the only one who likes it. While all the games on this list come highly recommended, this is the only one that's built for four players, so if you're planning on partying this holiday, putting ??this on your Switch is the way to go. 

Bonus Treat

This art by James "Illmosis" Beaver, entitled Horror Fight 2, is for sale right now and I can't recommend it enough. I bought an 11x17 print of this piece last month, so I can attest to the print quality and paper sto?ck, which are both top notch. If you have time for one last Halloween decoration before the 31st rolls around, don't be afraid to pick it up. 

The post Co??zy up to the dead with these recent Switch releases appeared first on Destructoid.

You might surprise yourself

We aren't, all of us, brimming with confidence about ourselves, our choices, and the narrative we've written in our short time here on Earth. I've been here the best part of four decades and I can honestly tell you that I'm still not completely confident in who I am, what I want, and the route I've taken to get to this point. I know I've taken lefts where I should have gone right, and that I have flaws that are likely irreparable. All I can do is my best to stay the course I've started, writing m?y own fate as best I can, day by day.

The latest title from gaming auteur Hidetaka Suehiro - better known to his fans as "Swery" - takes some of the darkest struggles faced by many people, particularly the young, and twists them together in an intense, atmospheric, and very creepy puzzle-platformer. At first glance, it's easy to dismiss The Missing as a knockoff of Playdead's 2010 hit Limbo, and while the comparison is more than fair, this particular jaunt?? through the woods becomes memorabl??e in its own evocative way.

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One, Switch)
Developer: White Owls
Publisher: Arc System Works
Released: October 11, 2018
MSRP: $29.99

Opening with the positive statement "This game was made with the belief that nobody is wrong for being what they are" only to follow with "This game contains explicit content, including extreme violence, sexual topics and depictions of suicide," The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories immediately sets out to inform the player to buckle up for a bleak tale of friendships, relationships, and the desire to find your place in the?? world.

The initial premise sees college student J.J. Macfield and her naive bestie Emily camping out on a woodland island. Separated after an awkward moment by the campfire, J.J. awakens to discover a violent storm brewing, with Emily nowhere to be seen. Players pick up immediately from this point, ??guiding J.J. across the "Isla Memoria," trekking through a variety of locati??ons, attempting to track down her missing friend and make some sense of the strange otherworldly horrors that cross her path on a journey into the darkest of nights.

Often compared to Limbo, and with good cause, The Missing follows the same premise of guiding a single character, left to right, through a singular but evolving location, constantly fearing a possible death-trap in every shadow. However, very unlike Limbo, there is little-to-no trial and error, with the game rarely leaving you feeling like you were "tricked" into dying. The Missing is light on action but heavy on atmosphere, with muted palettes, layered shadows, and twilight moonbeams bearing down on J.J.'s beautifully animated sprite, caught like a deer in the headlights. The Missing is simply dripping in dread and unease.

J.J. picks her way through a ??series of puzzle sequences, most of them physics-based, requiring the clever exploitation of a gruesome gimmick by which our hero can be torn asunder, but continue living. Whether using her limbs as counter-weights, rolling her disembodied head through small gaps, turning herself into a screaming inferno, or even turning the entire world literally upside down, J.J.'s self-mutilation is the key to her forward momentum, if she is ever to be reunited with her friend to the end.

Tirelessly treading through many symbols of classic Americana - an abandoned diner, a sawmill, a bowling alley, and a cathedral, among others - J.J. must gather a couple of hundred donuts, her favourite ??snack, which then unlock DM conversations from her past. These DMs introduce us to the relationships in J.J.'s life, slowly building the picture behind this bizarre situation. These conversations drip-feed us clues, backstory, and character plot-points, allowing to slowly understand the unhappy circumstances that have led to this ill-fated camping trip.

Though the story is slight, it is relevant and hard-going, ultimately leading to some very dark places. I personally found one of the later scenes in particular quite distressing, and the opening warning shouldn't be taken lightly by those upset by such topics. As you may have guessed by now, I'm working hard to feed you as little as possible here. The less you know, the more effective the narrative will be. The Missing performs an abstract waltz around themes such as sexuality, bullying, self-harm, pride, broken dreams, and ignorant parents, eventually tying up its threa???ds in an surreal, shocking finale.

It isn't a complete success. Swery borrows heavily from other sources. Influences from Twin Peaks, Limbo, and even Toy Story and Super Meat Boy occasionally feel a little too familiar. The Missing's use of Twin Peaks' famous "backwards talking" is also a misfire, a horror trope we've seen way too often. J.J.'s dialogue - crucial to the ??game's drama - is hit-and-miss, perfect at some points, and poorly performed in others, which is possibly the only real letdown, story-wise.

A single playthro??ugh wi??ll take you around six hours, although this does unlock new costumes, cheats, and some great concept artwork. (Plus there's all those hidden donuts to find.) But the game's price tag of thirty bucks definitely feels at least 10 dollars too much. You could wait for a sale, but by then J.J. and Emily's secrets might already be out there in the wild. I guess it depends on your personal idea of value.

The Missing is a deeply atmospheric adventure featuring gorgeous animation, affecting visuals, and stomach-churning sound effects, let down only by its so-so voice acting. Brave, subtle, and at times cruel, I for one "enjoyed" my time with the game, even though I found some of it uncomfortably relevant to chapters of my own life. Then again, maybe that's why it appealed to me.

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, is a short, dark trip through the nightmare of youth; growing up, discovering yourself, and existing in a society that rarely understands. Sure to be a divisive title among players, there are those who will find The Missing overpriced, earnest and melodramatic, while others will be taken by its surrealist story of undying friendship, ironically becoming an indelible memory to those w?ho dare to experience it.

_{[Th??is review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: The Missing: J?.J. Macfield?? and the Island of Memories appeared first on Destructoid.

Don't keep us in Limbo

Next week sees the launch of The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, the late??st release from the out-there mind of designer Hidetaka Suehiro, better known to his fans as Swery.

Arc System Works, who are publishing the weird and nightmarish?? adventure, have released a new trailer showing some of the scary perils and pitfalls that await young J.J. as she tracks down her missing friend, Emily, in a terrifying landscape where death and mutilation awaits at every ste??p. Why did I agree to review this? It looks likes pure nightmare-fuel.

If you'd like to know a little more about this bizarre game and its creator, then check out our interview with Swery himself. In the meantime, you can check out the new trailer below, ahead of The Missing's official ??launch - on PS4, ??PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch - October 11.

The post The Missing’s launch trailer is suitably weird, a little goofy, but definitely intriguing appeared first on Destructoid.

His favorite superhero is Bruce Willis in Unbreakable

Hidetaka Suehiro is a very busy man. For the past several weeks, Suehiro, who we all know as Swery, has been flying across oceans promoting the first title from his White Owls studio. It’s called The Missing, though the official title is the much longer The Missing: J.J. MacField and the Island of Memories, and it’s a puzzle platformer set to release worldwide later this month. It’s his first game in four years, a welcomed return to the industry after D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die. While review copies are already in ??the hands of the press, I got a chance to sit down with Swery in San Francisco at the end of September and test out this morbi??d new game one last time before launch.

The build was the same found at PAX West ??where I first tried it back in August. During that playtest session, I was able to see three of the four levels in the demo. This final pre-release hands-on gave me an opportunity to try out the level I missed. The stage, set in a graveyard, features an eclectic mix of puzzles and enemies that do well to showcase the type of variety the idea at the center of the game has to offer.

J.J. MacField is, with some limitations, immortal. Any damage done to her will jus?t knock off a part of her body, which is used to solve the variety of puzzles found in each stage. She can get all the way down to a head and still keep going, but any damage after that means death. The graveyard stage has a few head-only areas, ??but the big gimmick of the level are the open graves and fire. Bodies are strewn about J.J.’s path and thick, wooden gates block her progression. Because I can’t open or crawl through these big wooden blockades, my only choice is to burn those mothers down using J.J.’s body as the match.

As I played through this level, I recorded my conversation with Swery and his translator and going back and listening to it is a bit unnerving because of J.J.’s constant screaming as her body is kindled. When I first heard her back a??t PAX, or watched as her body rag-dolled across the stage after playing chicken with a wrecking ball, I laughed. It was funny. Part of it still is, but the joke becomes more and more serious with every gruesome injury she endures. Trying to get people to take this often absurd premise seriously has been a goal for Swery since he started showing the game off at conventions an??d online.

“I think the initial impression was this game had a lot of gore and a lot of violence and in the beginning, people would react with laughter or being taken aback by it,” Swery said. “That’s bound to happen. I ??think people will make fun or make jokes about it. You can’t really escape that. But what I’m very much looking forward to are the people who act?ually play the game all the way through and see the purpose of all this and how everything comes together in the end.”

Despite the subject matter, Swery says reception to the project has been very good. At Tokyo Game Show, he told me there was a lot of interest in the game from female audiences, so much so that women working the different game booths at the convention were tweeting about it. The Missing has seen a small but growing p?resence on social media over the past few weeks as more?? people get to play it. That level of awareness is giving the game a chance to stand out as it’s set to launch in during one of the busiest release periods in the industry.

“It is a pretty difficult time and I was concerned,” Swery told me, naming the recent Spider-Man and upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2 as two titles that could overshadow the project. “Why are we releasing at a time when all these other titles are happening? For me, I just wanted to get the word out there and put it in front of people’s eye?s. Ideally, once this game is released and people get their hands on it, they’ll come out and say ‘I can’t spoil anything but I really want you to play it.’ That sort of word of mouth will I hope be the ideal promotion for me. I think the game design and the story is such that it encourages people to spread the word about the game.”

The story is going to be the key draw for me. While I do enjoy the puzzle elements and can’t wait to see how White Owls exploits the brutal body damage formula, recent images Swery has posted online have turned my attention more towards the tale he’s going to tell. This specific picture of J.J. running through a field with windmills in the background and a whale in the sky has been on my mind since it was first tweeted out. I’m not sure how much of that type of imagery will be in the final product, but I can tell you The Missing features a rich, 1950’s Americana aesthetic in many of its designs. There’s retro artwork in the texts and stickers J.J. can send as well as many signs in the backgrounds that feel like they were ripped right out of American Graffiti. These artistic d????ecisions fall in line with the rest of Swery’s works which all feature rich, western entertainment influences.

“When I was growing up, there was a lot of American and western dra??mas, television shows, and movies that were on TV,” he said. “I used to watch those a lot as a child growing up so that is defini??tely one of my strong influences.”

Arguably the strongest influence seen in Swery’s work is the seminal television classic Twin Peaks. Its inspiration can be seen in Deadly Premonition and D4, and one of the most unique creative ch??oices of that series is repre?sented well here. In my last interview about The Missing, I brought up the game’s announcement trailer and how a creepy voice at the end had a Man-from-Another-Place sound to it. Swery confirmed he used the same recording technique Lynch used in his series, where actors say the lines in r??everse and then that audio is itself reversed to make it intelligible but with an otherworldly quality to it.

It turns out that audial trick is used with several characters in the game. One portion of the graveyard level has players going underground where there is a goat-head??ed demon statue that talks as you try and solve the puzzle attached to it. It’s unsettling; perhaps the most unsettling thing in a level where I have to dump body parts into open graves so the freed spirits of the dead can rise up and knock over a lamp that’ll catch J.J. on fire so she can set ablaze a wooden thicket blocking her path.

The audio in the demo is quite compelling. J.J.’s screams are basically burnt into my memory at this point as are her calls for her missing friend Emily. The audio director for the title is the same person who worked with Swery on D4. The song heard in the game’s trailer is an original composition by the same person who wrote the humming song in D4. In all, there will be 20 original songs in The Missing’s soundtrack.

When it launches on October 11, The Missing will be the first Swery game to appear on a Nintendo console. It’s set to launch simultaneously on Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC, which is a major accomp??lishment for a studio the size of White Owls.

“It was important for me to release the game on all platforms at the same time,“ Swery explained. “That was a goal? for me and it was a challenge for us. I hope to encourage a lot ?of other indie game studios and energize the community to see a game release on all platforms from a team of only about 12 people.”

It’s certainly a smaller size than Swery is used to. The Missing is his first game since 2001’s Extermination not to be developed at Access Games. I asked him if he preferred working with small teams like White Owls or the larger ones found at his former studio. Swery explained that having a team with 80 or 90 staff members can be something of a burden when you have to factor in everything not directly related to game development. While indie stu??dios like White Owls won’t see the type of budgets he was used to at Access, Swery said working with a small team allows him to better focus on the game design and producing the experience he set out to make.

Of course, unlike many indie studios, White Owls isn’t going to live or die by The Missing’s success. After an unsuccessful Fig campaign last year, Swery secured Kickstarter funding for his studio’s second game, The Good Life, earlier this year. Development is moving right along on that project and over the summer it was revealed Sony Music Entertainment’s new indie game publishing arm Unties will be publishing the title on Play?Station 4 and PC in 2019.

“I will be able to focus on it even more after The Missing releases,” he said. “I’m going to England this month. Last month we announced the map editor and introduced the ability to rid??e a bike. Since then we’ve been brushing up? on things and working on it further. Our backers should expect a new update every month.”

While I’m sure it’s far too early to talk about what comes after The Good Life, I did ask Swery if he’d be up for doing a collaborative project with another developer. At PAX, he and No More Heroes creator Suda51 shared a stage during a question and answer session. Seeing pictures of the two of them together got my mind reeling about the possibilities, so I wanted to know if Swery ha?d ever c?onsidered working with Goichi Suda.

“Yeah, I would love to if the opportunity presents itself and we have a chance to do it, we’d absolutely love to collaborate,” he said. “The only thing is the both of us have our hands tied with our own games. It’s very difficult for us to find ways to do something together these days. There was talk about doing something with Suda before at Omnibus, but it just never materiali??zed.”

The post We ?talk with Swery about The Missing, The ?Good Life, and a Suda51 collaboration appeared first on Destructoid.

Death becomes her

I'm not exactly sure how much laughing is appropriate during the demo for The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories. The title, due out for PC and all major consoles this year, is the latest project from avant-garde game designer Hidetaka Suehiro, better known as Swery. On the third day of PAX, I'm in the same room with him, asking him questions about The Missing and doing my best to contain my laughter.

Not because it's bad. In fact, it's quite an interesting puzzle platformer. I'm laughing because across the two levels I test, I se?e some of the most barbaric actions hoisted upon a vi?deo game character that it constantly crosses over from ghastly to gut-busting. This is one uproarious game, and yet a major part of me feels I should not be laughing.

The Missing tells the story of the titular J.J. Macfield who is searching for her friend Emily. The two are camping on an island when Emily goes missing. J.J. se??ts out to find her, but she's not your average girl. J.J. can't die. Well, okay, she can die if she gets hit enough but the point of the game is J.J. can take an immense beating and keep going no matter how little of her is left. Every time she takes damage, she loses a limb. It starts with an arm and then a leg. Then all of her appendages are gone and she's just a torso with a head. Take one more hit and she's just the head.

I can regenerate her body at any time with the press of a button, but this ghoulish play mechanic factors into the puzzle solving elements of the game. J.J. will use her limbs to set off switches or knock down objects. The smaller her controllable body becomes, the tinier spaces I can fit her into. Her body is a tool for progression as long as I can stomach the detestable punishment I put her through. At first, it's shocking to see this young woman fall to pieces as I throw her into barbed wire. But through repetition, the black humor shines t?hrough and I find myself struggling to control my laughter at the absurdity of it all.

I feel bad for her in the moments I'm not guffawing a??t her misery. I can't help but think White Owls is creating nothing short of a torture simulator. Swery says he understands that's how people might process it in the beginning, but as players really get to know J.J. and her predicament, he hopes they start to see the game as he does.

"Personally, I’m making this game with a superhero theme in mind," Swery says. "Unlike typical superhero games this is a lot different, but that is the theme that I have in mind. What I hope the users experience by playing The Missing is a ??lot of superhero, anime, and even western series where they discover some power or some unique ability about themselves like immortality and at first they’re very confused and scared and?? they don’t know what to do about it. But as they became accustomed to it and familiar with their powers, they become superheroes in that series, and that’s the experience I want the user to have while playing this."

Immortality is a staple of the superhero genre so it's not exactly outside the possibility this game can be seen in the same cannon. But like he says, at first this all takes some getting used to. Not just for J.J., but for me as well. The Missing forces me to fight my instincts ?when it comes to platformers, because it's not the typical platformer.

"When I first starting thinking of making a puzzle platformer game for this, I think most puzzle platformers consisted of the stage, the objects that are in the stage and the enemies," Swery says. "But when I try to create a puzzle platformer, I want all that plus something else, and when I tried to take it a step further I came up with this idea of making the main character immortal and making her body part of the formula of the problem-solving. What’s really interesting about when we were play-testing this, a lot of people the first time, they’re very confused, but rarely do they put the control??ler down. They end up pl??aying the game for hours and hours."

The demo doesn't really say much about the story or how J.J. happened to end up with this curse or superpower, depending on how you look at it. There still is a very deep and very "Swery" story he promises, one that takes inspiration from anime like Ajin: Demi-Human as well as an old faithful source of inspiration, Twin Peaks. In the game's debut trailer, there is an odd voice near the end that soun?ds like a chipmunk version of The Man from Another Place. ??Turns out, Swery used the exact same recording technique David Lynch used to record the dialogue.

"We were pretty creative in the recording of the voices here," he explains. "What you heard in the trailer, we actually had a voice actor say the words normally as they speak and we would play that back in reverse. They would hear that and then try to speak th??at reversed playback which was recorded and play it backward, giving it that effect. It was very difficult, but it was a lot of fun."

The only voice present in the demo is that of J.J. There is a button dedicated to calling out the name "Emily", even when she's down to just a head. The first level? I play is pretty straight-forward. Once I realize how the central mechanic works, my years of puzzle-platform experience kicks it and it's off to the ??races. Some of the sections trip me up but not as much as they trip J.J. up when she only has one leg. The second level turns the concept on its head. Taking place at a construction site, the only way to progress through the stage is by walking on the ceiling. To do that, I have to turn J.J.'s world upside down by carelessly throwing her into a wrecking ball that breaks her neck. Watching her ragdoll body fly across the stage as it turns 180 degrees absolutely leaves me in fits. 

As funny as I find it, and again I'm not quite sure how much I should be laughing here, Swery wants to make sure nobody mistakes his intentions for this game. The Missing is not here to make light of the very real issue of self-harm and suicide. At the beginning of the game, there is an info screen that says as much. Swery and his team at White Owls didn't just go about hurting this poor woman for fun. ??Every little bit of punishment she takes has a specific rea?son behind it.

"We couldn't just come up with random ways to die, that would just make for a ridiculous game. That wasn’t our goal. Really, we wanted there to be a purpose behind her pain. So discussing how this way of hurting yourself solves what problem in the game and really grounding it in reason was something we really got into. It was very challenging but also very fun in coming up with ways to do that and I think m?y creators really grew from that experience."

The last level of the demo Swery plays through himself, because I can no longer adequately play a game and interview somebody I respect at the same time. It's a chase sequence, where a demon of the island is trying t??o run down J.J. and she has to do everything she can to not fall to pieces if she wants to make it out alive. It's quite tough and Swery himself gives up on his fourth attempt to outrun it.

It looks harrowing but the sequence does give me a sneak peek at the other elements of the game, such as the cellphone feature which is activated when players collect enough donut collectibles throughout the game and the retro Americana design touches. The art direction for the game is from the same person who worked with Swery on Deadly Premonition and D4 and the soundtrack is from the composer of D4 as well. All of it blends together for a delectably weird game, one made with a sense of freed??om Swery didn't have in the past.

"Right now with Arc System Works publishing our games, they have been very open to our ideas and we’ve been able to do what we wanted to do with this game," he says. "So that was very free and liberating. In the pa??st, when I worked with other companies, we had parent companies and often our projects wouldn’t go through witho?ut the blessing of the parent company. Now that I don’t have to deal with any of that, the process of getting things started has been very speedy."

If you follow Swery at all, you already know he's hard at work on his next title The Good Life, currently planned for a 2019 release on PlayStation 4 and PC. Indie publisher Unties will be handling its distribution. That game had its ups and downs with crowdfunding, but Swery seems to finally be at a place where he can truly create the types of games he's always wanted to unleash on the world. It may be the more ambitious title coming from White Owls, but Swery wants people to know The Missing represents a real step forward for? him as a ga?me developer.

"When people think of the name Swery the immediately think of the very unique story and atmosphere we create, but since I’ve started White Owls and for this game to be the first game to come out of White Owls, I really wanted to show my audience that it’s not just the story I’m good at. I can also create great gameplay and I really wanted to put the focus on that. With The Missing, ??I want people to experience not just a Swery game but an improved Swery game from the past."

The post Swery to?ld us his new project The Missing is actually a superhero game appeared first on Destructoid.

What this is, I don't know

When Swery65's The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories was announced earlier this year, it left us kind of confused. When the first screenshots of the game debuted not too long ago, that confusion wasn't exactl??y cleared up. Today, we're getting our most vivid look yet at the White Owls project with the first official trailer.

What the fuck did I just w?atch? The violent deaths, the post-mortem control of body parts, that creepy-ass Man from Another Place voice near the end...this is a Swery game all right. 

The Missing is expected to ??launch later this year on Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

The post Blonde women are doomed to die in the first trailer for Swery’s The Missing appeared first on Destructoid.