Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Is 35-40% Complete Says Suda51

Suda51, the director of Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, recently sat down for an interview regarding the game, talking about Badman’s role in the game, how complete the game is, and whether there will be cheat codes. [Thanks, GameXplain!]

Here are the highlights:

• The build at PAX East is a prototype, and development is currently 35-40% complete.

• Badman will show up in dialogue in single player if he is not the player character. (Suda confirms that Badman can be chosen in single player.) However, Suda recommends two-player mode as he has a completely different skill list, so players can compare Travis’ and Badman’s in real-time.

• The other game worlds will be quite different, such as one which is sidescrolling. He hopes that players will enjoy the variety.

• They might do cheat codes with button inputs like older games.

• No More Heroes fans were always really passionate, but Suda could never find the right timing during the PS3/Wii U era to go back to the series. But when he first saw the Switch, he instinctively thought, “This is where I need to bring Travis back.”

• Each boss will be different in terms of gameplay.

• New skills are unlocked as you progress, and can be switched and mapped freely to the right-side buttons, and then pressing L.

• What has happened to Travis in the 7-year gap between No More Heroes 2 and Travis Strikes Again will be revealed slowly as the game goes on.

• Suda is interested in having Travis appear in other indie titles.

• Music is handled by two Japanese DJs for this game, as it has a different feel and atmosphere. They are DJ Abo and DJ 1-2. Jun Fukuda will be handling sound effects, and although Masafumi Takada is not handling the soundtrack, he returned to Grasshopper Manufacture for The Silver Case, so Suda might have him do something.

• Suda is confident the game will release this year despite the 35-40% completion, as they are speeding up development.

• Creating the development team was hard for Suda, as the game is made by a small team firing at all cylinders, with each member having a defined role. It is like an indie team, and they can’t just throw more development staff at it to speed it up. Making sure it all works is the hard part. Suda is re-learning to think in terms of ‘what is possible with these people’ because he’s been used to large-scale projects for a while now.

• The Nintendo Switch and Unreal Engine are amazing.

• The ultimate goal of Travis Strikes Again is to bring back a numbered sequel to the series, which Suda already has an outline in his head for.

• Suda will try bring Travis Strikes Again to as many gaming events as he can.

Here’s the full video below:

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes releases in 2018 for Nintendo Switch. You can also check out Siliconera‘s interview with Suda51 to learn more about Travis Touchdown’s new video game adventure.