Suda51 and James Gunn say they have nothing to do with the Lollipop Chainsaw remake

Suda51 and James Gunn have both stated that they have nothing to do with the newly-announced Lollipop Chainsaw remake.

On Tuesday, the original game’s executive producer Yoshimi Yasuda announced that his new company Dragami Games would be making a remake of the 2012 cult favourite.

However, despite being the two most high-profile names attached to the original title, neither creative director Suda51 nor co-writer James Gunn will have any involvement in the new project.

Referring to an article that wondered whether the two were linked to the remake, Gunn tweeted: “To answer the question in the article, neither I nor Suda51 are currently involved in this. I heard about it for the first time from Suda a couple [of] weeks ago.”

The Guardians of the Galaxy director added: “I neither endorse nor condemn it! I simply don’t know anything about it. But as articles are starting to slap our names on there, I think it’s important to make clear no one ever approached us about it.”

Following Gunn’s tweets, Suda then tweeted: “To add my two cents, like James Gunn says, neither he nor I am involved in this project at all, and Grasshopper Manufacture has nothing to do with development or anything.”

In his statement announcing the remake on Tuesday, Yasuda appeared to downplay Suda’s role in the original game, suggesting he had a more advisory role.

“As Suda-san was very busy handling development on other projects at the time, I served as director and producer, creating a joint development team consisting of staff from Grasshopper Manufacture and Kadokawa Games, overseeing development directly,” Yasuda claimed.

“Suda-san looked over the game design and supervised the project as an executive producer.”

Yasuda’s claims appear to be at odds with the game’s actual closing credits, which list Yasuda (not Suda) as the executive producer, and Suda as the creative director.

Furthermore, despite Yasuda’s claims that he “served as director and producer”, the game’s credits list Grasshopper’s Tomo Ikeda and Masa Shidara as director and producer respectively.

While claiming that most of the original staff are working on the remake, Yasuda also stated on Tuesday that some elements of the remake will be different from the original 2012 game.

“For instance, the original game had 15 licensed songs used in the soundtrack, but it is unfortunately difficult for us to implement all of them this time,” he explained. “As a result, aside from a few licensed tracks, the soundtrack will consist of new music.

“Additionally, since we have access to consoles with higher specifications, we will be taking a more realistic approach to the graphics this time.

“In any case, our goal is to make it easier for gamers who want to play Lollipop Chainsaw to do so. Please look forward to the game’s 2023 release.”