LET IT DIE

"Lily Bergamo" redirects here. For the star of this Let It Die prototype, see Tae Ioroi.

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Let It Die
developer	Grasshopper Manufacture, GungHo Online Entertainment
designer	Hideyuki Shin
engine	Unreal Engine 4
released	2016
genre	Beat 'em up, fighting
modes	Asynchronous multiplayer
media	Blu-ray disc

Let It Die is a free-to-play beat 'em up video game in development for the PlayStation 4 console. It is being designed by Grasshopper Manufacture and its parent company GungHo Online Entertainment. Let It Die will be the first title to benefit from Grasshopper's partnership with GungHo, which will introduce prominent online connectivity for the first time in a Grasshopper video game; previous efforts such as Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer Is Dead connect online solely for players to post their single-player scores to leaderboards. The game's tagline boasts, "Death cancels everything, except the truth."

Gameplay

After customizing their own avatar, players are set loose in Let It Die without weapons or clothing, excluding a gasmask. Equipment will then go on to be earned by killing foes among other ways, possibly through microtransactions given the game's free-to-play status. These objects are given unique attack and defense bonuses, much like equipment in traditional role-playing games. Players will be ranked by level and upon death, each deceased avatar's player data will be gathered and put to use as opponents in future matches. Similar artificial intelligence systems exist in Ascend: Hand of Kul and Forza Motorsport 5, in which players can be represented by an avatar in others' games, without actively participating themselves. A companion app for smartphones is also expected to launch alongside the game to presumably assist with tracking these online interactions. Although the companion app was planned, Suda51 has stated in a gamespot interview that his cohorts and himself completely forgot about it. Thus making the chances of the companion app releasing slim. Players have three lives before your character dies for good. These services are provided by the Insurance Girl who appears in the Game Over menu.

Development

The development of Let It Die began in November 2012 with a stylistically very different game titled Lily Bergamo. A forty-second teaser premiered at SCE Japan Asia's PlayStation 4 press conference on September 9, 2013, after which Goichi Suda spoke positively about GungHo's providing him with "complete creative freedom" on the project. Suda boasted a similar comment in 2005 when Shinji Mikami's presence at Capcom lent him considerable freedom designing killer7 thanks to Mikami's involvement with the project. In an April 2013 interview Suda implied Lily Bergamo was being developed for more than one console, however following its announcement, the title was identified only as a PlayStation 4 exclusive, with no comment of a future on Xbox One. Versions for Wii U, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were not expected as these platforms do not support the engine used to design the game. Other details surrounding Lily Bergamo were sparse, save for concept art, a teaser trailer starring protagonist Tae Ioroi and a vague release window of 2014. Yusuke Kozaki, who led the visuals of Grasshopper's 2007 effort No More Heroes, was also known to be involved with Lily Bergamo.

Several months later, Grasshopper announced Let It Die on June 9, 2014 during Sony's Electronic Entertainment Expo presentation. A trailer also premiered, depicting combatants armed with Morning Stars, Spiked Baseball Bats, Hatchets and more as they fought a death match against each other in live action and brief gameplay clips. Initially Let It Die was believed to be a separate PlayStation 4 game in development at Grasshopper, alongside the previously revealed Lily Bergamo. This was soon dispelled in an interview with Famitsu, in which Suda explained Lily Bergamo eventually became Let It Die "as a result of asking ourselves what kind of 'super action game' we should be making." GungHo CEO Kazuki Morshita was also present for the interview, elaborating, "Without changing the concept of having 'super action' and asynchronous online connectivity as the root [...] we also put in more strengths on the survival aspect." The story of Lily Bergamo will not live on through Let It Die, in which players will now design their own characters instead. Regarding the transformation of Lily Bergamo into a separate game, a similar situation for Grasshopper was previously documented in 2011 when Shadows of the DAMNED was confirmed as the final product of what began as Kurayami in 2006.

2014 Trailer

The trailer begins with live-action footage of a masked figure strutting down a dark hallway confronting t3rryf (lv. 14). A fight ensues and the masked man dons a pair of Safety Goggles before he presumably stomps t3rryf to death. Another man walks down a hall and swings a Morning Star at sgt.cactus (lv. 8). Another pair of combatants do battle, with one being bludgeoned to death with a Spiked Baseball Bat. An unseen fighter then lifts a Hatchet, and a series of gameplay clips are shown, where opponents are seen assaulted with fists, a baseball bat, battle axe, crossbow, flamethrower and death by asphyxiation. Live-action scenes return with another fighter, brutalbrody, executing his foe with a circular saw, before xxxtakxxx (lv. 23) fires a gunshot through his chest. The action comes to a stop, however xxxtakxxx becomes alarmed when a laser sight hovers over his forehead. Three gunshots are heard as the Let It Die logo appears onscreen.

2016 Trailer

The second trailer features lots of characters, including Death with a skateboard, grotesque body horror monsters and many, many people fighting eachother. Other features of note include a render of the city from production art and a machine that pumps what appears to be blood into one of the fighters to power them up.