- What the hell is “Let It Die”? Honestly, I couldn’t tell you.
Well, there are some things I could say about it. I could describe how it plays, or I could talk about how it’s a modern action/adventure game built through the lens of a video arcade.
But what I couldn’t really tell you is what the point of it all is. And that’s probably what its godfather, the incessantly enigmatic Japanese game developer Goichi “Suda 51″ Suda, would want. ” Let It Die,” which is planned for release on the PlayStation 4 some time this year, is the product of his studio Grasshopper Manufacture (“Killer Is Dead,” “Lollipop Chainsaw”), and he is not in the business of easily explainable video games.
Here’s what I do know, based on playing it and watching a friend play it: “Let It Die” drops you in a funhouse setting and tells you to go without any explanation. You’re not wearing pants, and you don’t have a weapon, but… creatures are trying to kill you nonetheless. If you’re lucky, one of those creatures will have some pants you can wear or a weapon (a bat, a gun or something in between) you can use. I’m using “lucky” in the literal sense here because what these funhouse monsters have on them is totally random and you have a legitimate shot at never finding any pants.
There are rats in the funhouse, and you can capture them. Once you’ve done that, you could eat them, or throw them at your enemies even though that doesn’t really help. Likewise, the funhouse is littered with mushrooms, some of which explode when you throw them at the bad guys. Or you could eat those exploding mushrooms and die. If you wanted to. I wanted to and did. It was funny.
At the end of the level I was allowed to play, I faced the boss monster. This hulking beast was blind and made of dead bodies, and he wielded one in each hand that he would swing wildly at me. I was amused.
I don’t really know what this all adds up to. I assume, though, that it does add up to something. Suda 51 doesn’t make or commission games that don’t, and “Let It Die” has to have some kind of attempt at layered meaning. For now, at least, I found it fun and funny. And I mean “funny” in the good way, because I’m fairly sure it’s intentional.
And while I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to let die, maybe it’s me. “Let It Die,” despite being a single player game with what appears to be pretty decent production values, is a free game with some kind of monetization model that hasn’t been detailed yet. Usually a free game that looks like this will be a multiplayer affair that lets you buy cool hats for your character to wear or something. “Let It Die” seems more like an arcade experience, where after you die a bunch of times and lose all your “lives” you’re prompted to insert two quarters.
Maybe this is some kind of experiment on the part of Grasshopper Manufacture’s new publisher and owner, Gung Ho Online Entertainment — a company best known for its free online and mobile games.
And maybe the title “Let It Die” is ironic, then, telling you not to insert those digital quarters. It would be a very Suda 51 thing to do.
I’m just guessing, though. I can’t tell from here what “Let It Die” is trying to do any better than I could read the fine print on a billboard without my glasses. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will at least be amusing in some weird abstract way. That’s all I would ask from a game like this.