Can you imagine being the technical artist who has to bring Suda51’s ideas to life? Just look at his body of work and try to tell me that could have come from anything but a waking fever dream conveyed in mouth noises and wild hand gestures. His latest game, the violent action buffet Romeo Is a Dead Man—the first new property from Grasshopper Manufacture in a decade—looks exactly like the culmination of a lengthy and meaningful career in blowing minds, challenging conventions, and driving artists mad.
If you caught yourself asking what the hell was going on, that’s probably the exact reaction the game is going for. In typical Suda51 fashion, the visuals are charmingly outdated, though it more than makes up for it with an avant garde stylishness that’s distinctive of the eccentric auteur. Also, it looks an absolute blast, like a gib-filled cocktail of the arcadey rough-and-tumble action of No More Heroes 3 and the visceral ultra-violence of Killer Is Dead.
Also also, this is apparently supposed to be a sort of space opera reimagining of Romeo and Juliet. We don’t know much about the story yet, but the game’s official website says our robo-headed hero is Romeo Stargazer, an FBI Space-Time agent who is ‘stuck between life and death’ after he was saved by a time paradox caused by a mad scientist. There’s also mention of space-time fugitives, ‘tears of time’, and a missing girlfriend named Juliet. What a delicious jumble of words.
Romeo Is a Dead Man releases in 2026 for PC, Xbox Series consoles, and PlayStation 5.
