Hotel Barcelona, the side-scrolling slasher movie parody from wonderfully oddball designers Goichi “Suda51” Suda and Hidetaka “Swery” Suehiro, has been delayed from 2024 into next year so developer White Owls can “keep polishing it and making it better”.
Suda51 (No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned) and Swery (Deadly Premonition, The Good Life) shared a first look at Hotel Barcelona last year, unveiling a game in which renowned serial killers from all over the US descend on the titular Pittsburgh hotel for reasons not entirely clear.
Motives probably aren’t a priority, however, when dealing with a game whose novice federal marshal protagonist Justine also happens to have an insane serial killer named Dr. Carnival living inside of her. “Will she be able to exterminate all the evil serial killers and escape from this cursed hotel?!,” asks its Steam page, “Find out in this 2.5D slasher film parody action game!”
Justine’s journey takes her across seven locations (each inspired by a different horror movie and overseen by its own serial killer boss) packed with enemies she’ll need to slaughter in order to remain bathed in blood and increase the power of her skills. And if that wasn’t wild enough, each time Justine dies and revives, she’ll be fighting alongside a new Slasher Phantom – ghost versions of her previous attempts who’ll deal damage and act as decoys.
All this was originally due to arrive this year, but with time running out for a 2024 release, Gamereactor (via VGC) asked Swery where Hotel Barcelona had got to during the recent IndieDevDay. “Right now,” Swery explained, “we’re bug checking the game and we want to keep polishing it and making it better. But ideally, we want to release the game in early 2025”.
Hotel Barcelona is due to release simultaneously on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 whenever it eventually shows up, but a Nintendo version apparently isn’t on the cards right now. “In the distant future,” Swery joked, “maybe AI will port it to Switch for me”.