After 13 years of Shadows of the Damned’s notoriously difficult development, Suda51 is fully recovered from the 'injury’ of rewriting the entire game six times: ‘I actually have many really fond memories of the whole experience.'

In 2011, it seemed like a strange pairing that Grasshopper Manufacture, the developer of No More Heroes, would be publishing a game by EA. Before making Shadows of the Damned director Suda51 talked about a survival horror called Kurayami, inspired by the works of Franz Kafka. (It was mentioned in an Edge magazine issue from 2006; that's just how far back it goes.) Shinji Mikami, the creator of God Hand and Resident Evil (I guess), joined the Kurayami project, and they embarked on a pitching tour throughout the US. The game was published by EA. To its credit, the company had a much more diverse publishing roster back then. But even so, Grasshopper remained a surprising collaboration.

Between signing with EA back in 2008 and the release of Shadows of the Damned, 2011, the survival horror aspect took a step back. According to Shinji Mikami, the original concept of the game featured Garcia Hotspur as 'basically naked' with only a torch for a lantern. The EA shoe was eventually released.

"In the first meeting online with Mikami and EA, they said suddenly 'Why doesn’t he have gun?' Suda told the story in the Grasshopper Direct. He later said, "They said we didn't understand the Western Market."

Since 2011, Mikami has been more critical of EA than Suda. He said in Archipel's series, "We were pushed by EA who told us that they liked the original game, but it was a lie." Mikami said of Suda, in an interview with PS Extreme following the launch of Shadows of the Damned: "I think his soul was broken." He's a very unique creator, and it seems that he wasn't quite comfortable making this game.

I asked Suda51, now 13 years after the game's release, if he was still disappointed with the outcome. (I might add that EA is not involved in this project.)

He said that when the first version of SotD was released, it was the sixth and last draft of the game he had written. "When it was first released, I was in fact somewhat heartbroken that EA made me rewrite scenarios I had come up with several time."

Suda is still fond of the game, and he brought Shadows of the Damned back as part of Travis Strikes Again 2019: No More Heroes. The Hella Remastered Edition was released this week. Suda said, "I want everyone in the world to know that, looking back, I have a lot fond memories of this experience." "Thanks for being concerned about me."

The spirit of Kurayami has survived in other ways, despite EA's publishing directives that transformed Shadows of the Damned into an action game with dick humor as much as ammunition. Suda 51 published Kurayami Dance in 2015, which was a manga that adapted some of his ideas that he couldn't use for Shadows. Even after all that, the story continues to call him:

"There are some ideas from Kurayami I'd like to explore. Hopefully one day I'll have the chance," he said. Some of the Kurayami ideas were also used in Black Knight Sword (2012), a platformer that was only available on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Shadows of the Damned, with its remastering, has avoided the same fate.

Grasshopper has been able to fulfill some long-held ambitions with the Hella Remastered version, even though it is not a remake. Suda said, "We were able to do some things we wanted to do in the original, but were unable due to budget, technology, and time restrictions." There's a new New Game+ mode, and Garcia can now wear a variety of new costumes. Suda thinks the game will be a lot better this time, so he hopes to see some of his wilder dreams realized in a Shadows of the Damned 2 project or future survival horror. For now, we can finally play the game on PC.