During today's Xbox TGS 2023 showcase, we got a first look at Hotel Barcelona, the upcoming collaboration between industry legends Suda51 and Swery. It looks exactly as crazy as you'd hope.
The project was first announced in 2019, but since then, it's been relatively quiet...until now, that is.
At the conclusion of the Xbox show today, a gameplay trailer for Hotel Barcelona was shown, followed by a discussion with both Swery and Suda51 about the game's genesis.
The game, according to the trailer, will consist of "2.5D slasher film parodic action", and that's pretty much what the trailer shows; fast-moving 2.5D combat with a decidedly B-movie aesthetic. You can check the trailer out here.
The titular Hotel Barcelona refers to a venue at which "serial killers from all over the United States are said to have gathered", according to the trailer's description.
Soundtracked by a song that sounds very suspiciously similar to Black Sabbath's "Paranoid", we see such delights as an AI-powered shark, a giant grotesque doll playing with toys as a boss fight, and a massive mechanized chef who appears to be called Nigel.
In a conversation with Xbox afterwards, Suda51 says that a chance meeting between him and Swery at a hotel prompted Hotel Barcelona as an idea.
Swery says the game will focus on action rather than narrative. It's a time loop game with some similarities to Deathloop in setup, so you'll "die many times, get weapons, grow, and then challenge bosses".
According to Swery, Hotel Barcelona's most distinctive feature is its "Slasher Phantom" system, which sees you receiving assistance from your past self in destroying objects and defeating your enemies.
This system was implemented, Swery says, so that he could make a "deathloop game where you can take the past with you".
Each of the game's bosses will act as a tribute to different genres of horror, too, according to a separate interview between Xbox and Swery. One boss, for instance, haunts a sporting ground and is named "Jacob". I'll let you work out who he's based on.
Hotel Barcelona is coming to Xbox Series X|S sometime in 2024. We don't yet have a specific release date, nor do we know if the game is hitting other platforms as well. Stay tuned for more.
