Lollipop Chainsaw director confirms remake, slates it for 2023

Lollipop Chainsaw‘s original director and producer, Yoshimi Yasuda, has confirmed that a remake of the cult classic is currently in development. Not only that, but it’s also scheduled to launch in 2023.

Yasuda’s new studio, Dragami Games, will develop the game with much of the original staff returning to work on the remake. According to a statement from Yasuda, part of the reason for the remake is that the original was becoming increasingly difficult to play due to availability. The “original development staff … did not want to leave it in limbo,” so Dragami Games purchased the rights from Kadokawa Games, where Yasuda originally served as CEO, producer, and director.

Yasuda also stated that Warner Bros., the game’s original publisher outside of Japan, will “support” the remake, but it’s unclear if it will once again act as the game’s publisher. Our guess is that Warner Bros. has simply given Dragami the thumbs-up for letting the remake move forward.

While many members of the original development team will return for the remake, certain aspects of it will change from the original. Yasuda noted that the soundtrack will be mostly new tracks aside from “a few” of the original’s 15 licensed songs. Since the remake will come to current-gen consoles, the graphics for the remake will also be “more realistic.”

Famously, the original Lollipop Chainsaw was a collaboration between Kadokawa Games, No More Heroes director Goichi “Suda51” Suda, and a successful-but-not-entirely-mainstream James Gunn, who co-wrote the script with Suda after Warner Bros. suggested it. Gunn would later use a fight scene from the game as inspiration for one of The Suicide Squad‘s most notable action sequences.

Yasuda has yet to confirm exactly which platforms Lollipop Chainsaw will launch on, but we suspect to at least see it on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, as long as the distribution is there.

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