Why Are Assassins Interesting Protagonists? Goichi Suda Explains

Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda has developed a bunch of video games. Many of them have an assassin as the protagonist. In killer7 you play as a group of assassins. Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes fights his way up the United Assassins Association by killing one hitman at a time. Even Garcia Hotspur from Shadows of the Damned is kind of like an assassin since he’s a demon hunter.

Killer is Dead follows Mondo Zappa who cleans the the streets during a chaotic time when criminals are utilizing biomechanical augmentation. Mondo Zappa has a cybernetic arm and he uses this to execute criminals like Victor.

After I saw Killer is Dead, I asked Suda what makes assassins interesting protagonists.

"I think going back to the core essence, I used to be an assassin and that really reflects on what kind of games I want to make," Suda replied with a laugh. "I’m sorry, that’s me just being jetlagged. When you defeat an enemy, that equals death. If defeat equals death and you’re thinking about the fine line between living and dying, to express that in an action-oriented game an assassin [as a character] makes it much easier to express that."