Entertainment & Culture

Hidetaka Suehiro on Fear, Humor, and the Dark Heart of HOTEL BARCELONA

BY Maizura October 29, 2025

Hidetaka Suehiro

Hidetaka Suehiro is a Japanese game director and writer known for his bold, unconventional approach to storytelling. His latest project, HOTEL BARCELONA, is a love letter to horror expressed through gameplay. Set in a remote hotel on the border between Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the game’s luxurious setting hides a terrifying secret — it’s a trap built for America’s most dangerous serial killers.

Our winning title, HOTEL BARCELONA, received 3 Grand and 6 Gold awards at the NYX Game Awards. Co-created with Goichi Suda (SUDA51), it’s a love letter to horror expressed through gameplay.

My studio is White Owls Inc., and our motto is “From Osaka to the World!”

I fell in love the moment the story and control shared the same temperature. Today, I deepen that feeling through loop design that makes you say “one more run,” and with ma (negative space) in pacing.

We focus on small details to reach deeper meaning, subtracting the unnecessary to reveal true identity — from Osaka to the world.

The concept is an homage to horror itself. Each stage is built around the question, “What if this were a film?”, and introduced with a movie-style poster. We translate cinema’s memory—and its real-world weight—into the feel of action.

Slasher Phantom — where your dead self fights for you — and co-op/invasion PvP (Doppelgänger) introduce a new layer of tension. Dropping other players’ presence into solitary fear deepens both the tension and the release.

Assists: we reworked Easy Mode, healing and relief items, and tuned weapon identities, skill order, and prices down to the millimeter — widening the door without dulling the core.

Feel first. Prototype → verify → remove. We keep only what the hands truly need.

Everyday VR/MR combines short sessions with subtle social presence, a space with plenty of room to grow.

We will continue working in VR, where technology that brings presence and intimacy into games connects naturally with narrative.

Fear and humor, combined with the joy of mastery — that fingertip thrill with a small dose of euphoria.

Horror is love!

We aim to further dissolve the border between reality and fiction, touching the player’s now.

We’re working on post-launch support for HOTEL BARCELONA alongside new projects in the VR space. We’ll share more when we’re ready.

Discoverability and community: we emphasize events and conversation, improving in small and fast iterations.

Atmosphere - the rhythm of sound, color, and placement until the place speaks.

I was fortunate to collaborate with SUDA51 on this project. I’m drawn to creators who let humanity and strangeness coexist — across disciplines, too.

Start small, ship it. Have the courage to subtract — your flavor emerges by taking away.

Winning Entry

HOTEL BARCELONA

HOTEL BARCELONA ホテル・バルセロナ: A Blood-Soaked, 2.5D Slasher Action Game from SUDA51 and SWERY. A mysterious hotel...

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Explore the journey of Chase Bethea, the Gold Winner of the 2025 NYX Game Awards. He’s a multi-award-winning video game composer with over 30 titles, including Cubic Climber, recognized as Noteworthy on Destructoid, and I Can’t Escape: Darkness, which earned him a 2016 Artist of the Year nomination.

Hidetaka Suehiro on Fear, Humor, and the Dark Heart of HOTEL BARCELONA

Hidetaka Suehiro

Winning Entry

HOTEL BARCELONA

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Hidetaka Suehiro on Fear, Humor, and the Dark Heart of HOTEL BARCELONA

Hidetaka Suehiro

1 Congratulations on your proud achievements in the NYX Game Awards! Can you share more about your game, your studio, or yourself?

2 What was the moment you realized you wanted to create games, and how has that passion evolved over time?

3 Tell us about your studio-what's the mission that drives your team's creative process?

4 What's the story or concept behind your award-winning game, and what inspired its creation?

5 What do you think is the most innovative or unique feature of your game, and how does it enhance the player experience?

6 What's the most unexpected challenge you faced during development, and how did your team tackle it?

7 How do you approach balancing technical limitations with creative ambition in your games?

8 What's a current trend in gaming that you think holds immense potential to become a major element in the coming future?

9 How do you see AI, AR, or VR technologies being implemented increasingly, and do you plan to explore further into this area?

10 What kind of emotional or intellectual impact do you hope your game has on players?

11 If players could take away one message or feeling from your game, what would it be?

12 What's a dream project or concept you've always wanted to explore, but haven't had the chance to yet?

13 What's next for your studio? Can you tease any upcoming ideas or projects that can be shared?

14 What's the biggest change you've seen in the gaming industry since you started, and how have you adapted to it?

15 What's your secret to designing a game world that feels alive and immersive to players?

16 If you could collaborate with any game developer or studio in the world, who would it be and why?

17 What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone dreaming of starting their journey in game development?

Winning Entry

HOTEL BARCELONA

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IAA GLOBAL AWARDS

MUSE Awards

Vega Awards

NYX Awards

TITAN Awards

NY Awards

LIT Awards

Noble Awards

Arte Collection

Lumis Collaborations