Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture is independent again after splitting from NetEase
Grasshopper Manufacture announced on September 30 that it leaves NetEase Games' ownership on October 1 and returns to being an independent studio. Goichi Suda says the split was agreed amicably and that the team wants to make a wider range of games.
Grasshopper Manufacture is on its own again. The Tokyo studio behind killer7, the No More Heroes series and this year's ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN announced on September 30 that it leaves NetEase Games' ownership on October 1 and returns to independent operation.
What the studio said
The notice is signed by Goichi Suda, better known as Suda51, the studio's representative director and CEO. He frames the decision as a natural break point: ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN shipped in February 2026 after an all-hands push, the studio turned 28 in March, and the question of what came next produced an answer nobody at the company seems to have expected to be quiet.
Suda's stated reason is range. Having finished that project, the studio wanted, in his words, to deliver titles in an even wider variety of styles to video game lovers everywhere. He also points to something concrete the NetEase years produced: Grasshopper self-published ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN and, he says, improved its own self-publishing know-how in the process. That is the practical argument for going it alone - the studio now has a route to market it did not have in 2021.
Not a fallout
Both sides are going out of their way to say this is friendly. Suda describes the separation as reached after thorough discussions with NetEase Games and with their generous cooperation, says the two companies continue to cherish the relationship they built, and leaves the door open to working together again. NetEase acquired Grasshopper in 2021, having taken it from GungHo Online Entertainment, and funded development and business planning during the five years it owned the studio.
Suda closes by pointing at the studio's 30th anniversary, which lands in 2028.
What the notice does not say
There is no word on who holds the rights to ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN or to the back catalogue, no figure attached to the deal, and nothing about headcount. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered, the 2024 re-release, is published by NetEase Entertainment, and the notice does not address what happens to it.
Why it matters
Grasshopper spent five years inside a large publisher and came out of it with a self-published hit and its independence intact, which is a rarer outcome than the layoffs and closures that have defined the last two years of studio acquisitions.