We Talk To Sukeban Games kiririn51 About VA-11 Hall-A, .45 Parabellum Bloodhound, And More

2016’s cyberpunk drinks-serving visual novel VA-11 Hall-A was one of the year’s best indie titles, garnering critical acclaim for its nonlinear gameplay, charming cast of characters and misfits, and amazing neo-retro aesthetics and soundtrack that may remind vintage players of certain 90s PC story-heavy titles. Even until now, people sing praises about the title and believe the game has a lasting impact on gaming culture, influencing even game developers to make their own charming visual novel of this kind and structure.

Not too bad for a mostly two-person game company. We talk to one half of Sukeban Games, Christopher “kiririn51” Ortiz, about the team’s latest games, the cyberpunk active time battle game .45 Parabellum Bloodhound, as well as its future.

.45 Parabellum Bloodhound is clearly a tribute to the 1998 PS1 classic Parasite Eve. Were there other inspirations that led to your team making the action RPG?

The main inspiration, as weird as it might seem, started when roaming around the streets of Milan a couple of years ago.

I was in the dump, basically, like emotionally, and I was like, okay, I need like an outlet for this. So I replayed Parasite Eve, which led to me like “Hey, this battle system, it looks super good, in the sense of people who usually play visual novels,  maybe they can play a more action-oriented thing, if they can stop time”. So I was like, “oh, this is a good framework to work with”.

What is .45 Parabellum Bloodhound about?

The game is about a former soldier called Reila Mikazuchi, who is now looking for paradise. Whatever that means, I’m going to let players figure that out.

 As for the main narrative beats of these games, I feel like this is one of the most expensive games to make art-wise. (points to Sukeban Games’ TGS 2026 PlayStation 1 & CRTV display) That right there? That is pretty much the origin of our game. Since the launch of  VA-11 Hall-A, I want people to engage in this kind of experience back in the day. There is a reason why this game looks the way it does. 

Let’s go back to VA-11 Hall-A for a bit. It’s clearly a cult hit, ’nuff said. Did you foresee that it would blow up to be this indie culture phenomenon?

Oh no. Absolutely not.

 I knew the game was going to be popular enough to make another title. We were looking at sales in the ballpark of 5,000 to 7,000 copies.

And we were like, okay, this is enough to make another game. But the thing with VA-11 Hall-A is that it never really blew up and became a thing. It always feels like a mainstay.

It’s something like “oh yeah, I know the purple bartender game”. People just kind of know what it is. Maybe they think it’s bigger than it really is.

It’s been just a consistent seller all the time. But what actually surprises me is the fact that 10 years later, now we’re getting all the figures, we’re getting this live concert for the 10th anniversary. We’re getting the plushies, we’re getting cool soundtrack releases.

It’s the kind of stuff that big franchises usually get in the first year of becoming famous. You can see that with many, many indie games. They blow up, they start getting everything, even anime sometimes.

So to me, the fact that it took so long for Valhalla to get there,  it’s like a testament of how consistent it is in the minds of players. 

Tokyo Game Show has begun! We're in Hall 9, indie area. Seek for the neon sign. #45pb #va11halla pic.twitter.com/vjwhqedEU9

— Sukeban Games (@SukebanGames) September 17, 2026

Funny you mentioned anime, because VA-11 Hall-A would make a great anime series. Have you considered spinning the game off to anime territory?

Yeah, I’m not against it. I would love that s***, but it’s complicated.

It will have to be another type of story. Because when the game was made, it was written as a video game first and foremost.

A lot of people might play and be like, oh, there’s not too much interaction here. Maybe there is like… Oh, you know, like the drink mixing feels more like a chore rather than something more complex or whatever. But once you take the story as is, and you turn it into a manga or an anime or a TV show or a movie, it just changes fundamentally, even the way people talk.

It’s a format, and every script should respect its format, basically. So there are all of these considerations that you have to keep in mind.

Who is the most popular character in VA-11 Hall-A?

Jill, obviously. Second place is Dorothy Haze by a landslide, followed by Dana.

Who is the toughest person to write in the game, from the team’s perspective?

If memory serves right, I feel like the peoplethat was the toughest to write, were actually the characters that felt more like parodies of other things from pop culture and other sources (like Virgilio, Donovan, and Nicole).

Because the writer, Fernando, he has this philosophy where certain characters might have been born as a joke. However, they needed meat, they needed meat to the bone, so people can actually invest in who they are. It’s like, “oh, this guy looks like George Constanza, but he’s like an actual character, and he’s like an actual character beyond the gameplay”.

Let’s talk about N1RV Ann-A; how far is it development-wise?

 So, that project ran into some issues, mostly on the creative side. The studio, historically, has always been doing very well.  It’s not really a matter of, “Oh, we cannot work on this”.

It really just comes down to creative stuff, which is why the company split into different projects. So, for example, I’m working right now on 0.45 Parabellum Bloodhound. 

I’m doing basically all of the visuals, animations, level designs, everything that you can see, except the programming. And the Bloodhound writer is now working on this game called Everyone’s Detective, which is an homage to old detective games for the Nintendo DS. If you check the QR code, you can see some screenshots, and you’ll know what I mean.  It’s dope as f***.

So that’s three games in Sukeban Games’ pipeline?

Correctly, because I was going to say that after 0.45 Parabellum Bloodhound, I’m going to focus full-time into N1RV Ann-A.

And after N1RV Ann-A is Everyone’s Detective. Let’s see which one comes out first. Maybe it’s going to be like an internal race.

Where does N1RV Ann-A take place in the VA-11 Hall-A timeline?

.45 Parabellum Bloodhound will be out for PC in late 2026 or early 2027. But it will be out soon. N1RV Ann-a? Not anytime soon.