Not-E3 2023 Part 8: Grasshopper Direct and RGG Summit

Table of Contents

Not-E3 2023 Schedule
Guerrilla Collective 2023
Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase
Devolver Direct: The Return of Volvy
Wholesome Direct 2023
Future Games Show
Xbox Games Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward
Capcom Showcase
Grasshopper Direct
RGG Summit

Grasshopper Direct

With Grasshopper Manufacture’s showcase set for midnight on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, it was going to be a late one, but I was fine with that.

However, when midnight came, nothing happened. (Ironic, considering the website said “Something’s gonna happen” for the entire duration of the countdown.) Shortly afterwards, Grasshopper tweeted about technical difficulties. A bit over 15 minutes later, they tweeted that they were almost ready.

Sometimes after 12:30, they tweeted that it would be ready in another 15-20 minutes. Around this point, I started to think about Idea Factory’s Charade Maniacs stunt earlier this year and wonder if Grasshopper was really having technical difficulties or if they were just trolling us.

Eventually, they updated us again to say it would occur around 1… or so.

A video finally appeared sometime around 1:15.

They showed the Shadows of the Damned remaster, some art and merchandise, and teased at least one game at the very end, in typical Suda51 style. The video also included two fake ads, so it’s not clear if those are also teases for the game at the end or related to something else.

All in all, it was interesting, but it would have been more interesting if I watched it at a respectable time instead of staying up past 1 AM for it.

I still don’t know if the long wait time was intended or not, but if you’d told me this sort of thing would happen twice in the same year, I wouldn’t have believed you.

RGG Summit

And to close out this year’s not-E3 celebration, last night was the moment I’d been waiting for – the RGG Summit. Now, last year’s RGG Summit included one game that had been revealed the night before, trailers for two additional games, and then the surprise drops of Judgment and Lost Judgment on PC later that day, so it might have set expectations a bit too high for what an RGG Summit includes.

But when I listed my predictions, I still thought only Gaiden and 8 were likely to appear… except when both of those were shown at other events ahead of time, that got me thinking that they must be holding back a surprise for their own showcase, right? Right??

The Summit’s translation was a bit hard to follow at first due to the audio levels being the same for both the actual speakers at the event and the translators (though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Dragon Quest anniversary stream in 2021).

They started with a trailer for Like a Dragon Gaiden, the same one shown at Summer Game Fest. After that, they showed a little more of the two combat styles. I love the secret agent gadgets Kiryu has in Agent Style.

(Also, is it just me, or is there something ironic about them changing the English title of the series from “Yakuza” to “Like a Dragon” to match the Japanese title, only to then call Kiryu’s Ōryū Style “Yakuza Style” in English?)

After that, some of the actors came on stage and talked a while. I didn’t listen to all of this part, because I wanted to try to avoid spoilers since I’m not caught up on the series yet. I definitely caught the introduction of Homare Nishitani III, though, not a name I expected to see. It seems like this might be a case where Nishitani’s name is passed on like a title, although it’s funnier to think it’s his descendant.

Once the actors finished their discussion about the upcoming games, it was time for a new trailer for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth… or rather, the same trailer shown at the Xbox Game Showcase.

Fortunately, after that they showed something new – a conversation between Ichiban and Kiryu that has sparked a lot of conversation among fans about Kiryu’s relationship status.

Finally, they announced another RGG Summit for Fall 2023. A subsequent tweet said it will take place in September.

I wish the RGG Summit had a surprise announcement, or at least held back one of the trailers to be shown here first. Nevertheless, at least we got some details! That brings us to the end of this year’s Not-E3 showcases, as the next announced showcase isn’t for a couple weeks yet. What did you think of the Grasshopper Direct and RGG Summit?