We ran into Suda 51, head of Grasshopper Manufacture and director of No More Heroes, Killer7, and more, at the Nintendo booth at PAX 2018 this year. The punk rock director was showing off his newest game, Travis Strikes Again, which recently got a release date of January 18, a date Suda told us was so that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate can breathe without worrying about the devastating sales potential of his game on Smash Bros.

While we were talking, I asked Suda why Travis Strikes Again was not named No More Heroes 3, and he was keen to point out that Travis Strikes Again is a game in the No More Heroes universe, but not the next game in the series. The reason, Suda says, is that he wanted to work on a smaller game again.

"I wanted to make something like an indie game," he explained. "The kind of game where you look around the room and you can see everyone on the team at once. I wanted to make a game like that without too big of a team."

The question thus has to be asked then is if No More Heroes 3, a game more like the previous two No More Heroes titles, is in Suda's future.

"Yeah, I'd really want to," he started. "Those kinds of projects are hard to think about when you're deep into another game. But Travis Strikes Again is one part of the No More Heroes story, it's not the end of it."

Suda also mentioned to us that Nintendo first approached him about bringing Travis back a few months before 2017's Switch reveal event. When Nintendo showed him and his team the controllers popping off, they immediately decided it could be a natural fit for a co-op game.

Travis Strikes Again releases on the Switch on January 19.