Suda51 on sticking to his convictions, retroactively adding to the ‘Kill Your Past’ anthology, and new release Romeo is a Deadman

While playing a game, there is often a temptation to ponder “What is this?” and work to break it down into its constituent parts.  In fact, in my time playing games, I have wanted nothing more than to stare a developer dead in the eyes and ask them that very question. So when it came time to interview Suda for Romeo is a Deadman, I had to ask him one thing: “What the f**k did I just play?” 

Suda retorted, “Well, put simply, it’s basically really similar to the story of Super Mario Bros. You got Mario, you know, and in the end, he saves Peach, and then you got Romeo, and is he gonna be able to meet with Juliet again? You’ve got bad guys and good guys and stuff. It really is pretty much Mario, just sort of, totally different.” 

F**k. 

The Escapist recaps

• Suda frames Romeo is a Deadman as part of his long-running thematic anthology “Kill the Past,” which explores how people live with, rather than erase, their past experiences.
• He explains how this theme has evolved across his career, noting that Romeo uniquely incorporates time travel to question whether confronting the past actually changes anything.
• Suda’s “Kill the Past” theme has matured over time, shifting from erasing trauma to learning how to live with it without letting it define you.
• Suda retroactively acknowledges earlier works like Fire Pro Wrestling Special and Moonlight Syndrome as part of “Kill the Past,” reflecting on the dark, unintentional prescience of Fire Pro’s ending.
• Despite backlash and controversy early in his career, Suda emphasizes his uncompromising creative philosophy, prioritizing personal vision over audience expectations, a mindset that continues into Romeo is a Deadman.

Studying the past

It was clear that to get some Romeo is a Deadman news, we would need to approach this with a little more tact. This is why perhaps a better focus to start with is how we got here. This new game may be a new IP, but it is far from isolated from Suda’s other works, an anthology known as “Kill the Past.”

“[Kill the Past is] something I originally came up with for the Silver Case, which is a crime story. There are criminals who have done terrible things in their past, and there are also the victims who have had terrible things done to them in their past, and a lot of people want to get rid of those experiences. A lot of people want to kill those experiences.”

Though this idea would quickly spread into his other works as he added

“As an idea, it’s something that I’ve visited in many of my games: the Silver Case, 25th Ward series, Killer Seven, stuff like that. And now, Romeo is a dead man.”

Though perhaps Romeo is a bit of a unique case, as he followed up, “In Romeo, there’s time travel. Obviously, in real life, you can’t go back into the past. You can’t change anything. So if you have this terrible thing that happened in your past, you can’t just bury it, as you’re living, you’re just continuing to dig a hole.”

For Suda, it has been clear in his work that his view on this idea has changed constantly.

“I feel that the idea behind killing the past in the series itself, even though it doesn’t necessarily directly touch on it a lot of times, is more about, again, not actually forgetting about or destroying your past, but continuing to go on and not letting it get in your way,” he added.

Learning from the past

Before The Silver Case, Suda worked on two games: Fire Pro Wrestling Special and Moonlight Syndrome, which are unofficially considered part of ‘Kill the Past’ but have often been dismissed due to being earlier works. So, what does Suda make of their place in the series? 

“At the time, I hadn’t thought of the ‘kill the past’ thing at all; it wasn’t even like a glimmer in my eye or anything,” he explained.

“But now that you bring it up, I think it would be fair to include those in the ‘kill the past’ series.” Well, Suda, if you insist, you heard it here first, folks, Suda has recognised Fire Pro Wrestling Special and Moonlight Syndrome are part of Kill the Past. 

Though beyond the ‘scoop’, Fire Pro Wrestling Special in particular is a fascinating game, as not only was it Suda’s first game credit but also his boldest. It has a strikingly dark ending that, while controversial, was almost prophetic in its view of the dark side of the ring. 

However, Suda was quick to mention how unintentional those connections were, “When I first wrote the Fire Pro game, all these other things that came to light later. You know, wrestlers dying really young, and stuff like steroid use and general drug use.”

However, this is not to say Suda was clueless, as he added, “One thing that I did know is that in Japan in particular, you’ve got the pro wrestlers, you’ve got the groups that they’re associated with, and a lot of times behind that, you’ve got Yakuza. They’re kind of running things and making money off that. I had an inkling of that sort of darkness.”

It was clear how this formed the ending for Suda, “for Morio Smith, it was like, ‘I’ve made it to the very top of what I’m doing. What else do I have to do now? What else is there for me?’ And that kind of brought the darkness out of him.”

This story, however, was far from Suda’s original intention.

“So when I first wrote the story for Fire Pro Special, originally, there were going to be two endings. There was going to be a happy ending and a bad ending,” he revealed.

“At most a month, maybe even, like, two weeks before the master submission (the version that will be copied onto retail cartridges), I went to the programmers and bowed my head, and said, ‘I’m super sorry, but I have to change this’”

Living the future

It is at this point its important to emphasise that this was Suda’s first project, so to actually do this is gutsy to say the least. Why take the risk?

“I felt that, even though it was a character that I created myself, it would be rude to this Morio dude, he’s only got one life, he’s only got one fate. And no matter what happens, he’s headed straight towards that fate.”

This may be a bold artistic decision, but it’s important to weigh that with the consequences of such a leap. “What kind of surprised me was the reaction that I got from the fans when the game actually shipped”. 

He added “This is back again during, like, the Super Nintendo, Super Famicom days, when there wasn’t really a proper internet, so you couldn’t just write a bunch of stuff on Reddit or Twitter, so when I get to the office, and there’s like a stack of cardboard boxes like a person high filled with postcards that would come with games where you could send like feedback to developers, and they all said, like, die, F**k you, K**l youself”.

As a new scenario writer, this would be overwhelming to throw yourself in front of, but it speaks to Suda’s uncompromising approach, in his own words:  

“[Players] would rather see a scenario end a different way. But I can only write what comes into my head, and even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to think, ‘oh, maybe my players would rather see this instead’. I can’t really consider that, because I would be like, ‘I can’t write this’”

So, perhaps my initial question was a little unfair to Suda. The decisions he makes are reflective of his own vision, and in this modern gaming landscape, that uncompromising creative direction is beyond admirable. 

Indeed, Romeo is shaping up to be a uniquely chaotic experience. We can assure you Suda’s loud punk-esque sound is far from dead, and there is much to look forward to ahead of the Romeo is a dead man release date this month.

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