PARADISE KILLER
Format PC, Switch Developer Kaizen Game Works Publisher Fellow Traveller Origin UK Release 2020
For player and developer, the story of Paradise Killer begins with a bold leap into the unknown. The game opens with disgraced investigator Lady Love Dies finding out her eternal exile to the luxurious Idle Lands isn’t quite forever after all: after three million days, she’s called to investigate the murder of the titular island’s ruling council. But there’s only one way back, and that’s down. After unlocking the gate separating her from the world beyond, it’s time, as she puts it, “to fall into a pit of crime”. And so, to the strains of Barry Topping’s glorious city-pop score, she steps off. Cue title screen.
It took similar courage for Kaizen Game Works’ technical director and creative director to kick off their studio’s own adventure. This pair of old schoolfriends had been working separately in the game industry for some time, with several mobile and triple-A games under their belts. The two made bullet-hell endless runner Wonton (under the moniker Quarter Circle Punch) as a hobby project in 2011, and ever since had had the urge to make something bigger and more involved as a duo. “I liked my jobs, and I’d worked on some really high-end and designer on Supermassive Games’ and felt the same way. And so they decided it was time to take the plunge and make a new game together.
