Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes teasers were hidden in plain sight
Things got a little lost in translation
Yesterday’s big news out of Nintendo’s indie presentation was that the new No More Heroes game, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, will launch exclusively on Switch next year. Although the trailer was our first confirmation of its title and indie game emphasis, director Suda51 actually revealed both long ago — if you were paying close enough attention, that is.
Remember the big Nintendo Switch reveal livestream from back in January? The eccentric Suda stopped by for an enthusiastic, breathless presentation of his first Switch project: a then-untitled game focused on Travis Touchdown, star of the No More Heroes series.
But non-Japanese speakers missed out on most of the other details, as the live translator had trouble keeping up with Suda’s off-script musings. Unofficial transcriptions of what Suda was really saying appeared online afterward, giving way more details about the Switch game than we English speakers got during the actual presentation stream.
“Well, I get the feeling the Switch can even connect indies and major titles,” Suda said, according to a translation by YouTuber iYakku. “So, I’m gonna try making a game that’ll become the singularity between indies and the Nintendo Switch. And it’ll be centered around Travis — Travis co-starring with an indie star.”
And that’s exactly what we saw in our look at Travis Strikes Again yesterday, albeit briefly. Hotline Miami made a tiny appearance in one part of the footage, and the game is reportedly inspired by several other indie designers and projects.
Suda even reiterated to Japanese publication 4Gamer in January that the indie spirit was crucial to the new No More Heroes game, hinting that he was focused on combining indies and bigger-budget projects for the Switch title.
But the most glaring teaser was right behind Suda the entire time. A piece of artwork displayed on stage showed Travis wearing a shirt that said “Travis strikes again.”
People quickly started making shirts of their own inspired by the design, and several Twitter users began to refer to the project by that name colloquially.
Although Suda didn’t suggest that the game would be called Travis Strikes Again, the phrase appeared on his Twitter account several times in the months that followed — suggesting it was more than just a catchy phrase.
That brings us to where we are now. Maybe Suda had planned to call the game Travis Strikes Again all along, or maybe the title just stuck. Diehards who have been paying attention for the past eight months: Good job. Everyone else: Now you know.
