Product Code Database
extra=born 14 April 1973, known as SWERY or Swery65, is a Japanese video game director and writer. He was one of the founding members of the game development studio Access Games which is based in Osaka. His roles in the company included director, designer, and writer. His best-known work include the games Spy Fiction, Deadly Premonition, and . He then left Access Games in 2016 and he founded his own studio named White Owls Inc.
Suehiro received a degree in film and video advertising at Osaka University of Arts. He decided against pursuing a career in the film industry, as he felt it was "very conservative".
In November 2015, he announced that he would be taking a health-related break from game development in order to focus on recovering from reactive hypoglycemia.
Swery is often called the DrinKING, posting numerous photos of him with alcoholic beverages, but is recently on a sobriety streak.
Sharapova, a stuffed toy monkey, is Swery's "partner". Swery brings him everywhere in his travels. He has a Irezumi with his name and Sharapova at the center.
The first game he directed was the PlayStation 2 game Spy Fiction released in 2003. The game is a third-person military themed stealth game and the target audience was Western players rather than Japanese players.
Production began in 2004 on a game titled Rainy Woods, which was then cancelled in 2007. Work was restarted under the new title Deadly Premonition and it was released in 2010. A survival horror game, it also placed emphasis on targeting Western gamers rather than Japanese players. That game made its way to the 2012 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition with the title "Most Critically Polarizing Survival Horror Game" because reviews of the game ranged so heavily.
In 2014, he partnered with Microsoft to develop an Xbox One game titled , which utilizes the Kinect motion-sensing device. The game was highlighted at GDC Next 2013 as one of their "GDC Next 10", where chosen developers give talks on the inspiration behind their upcoming games.
In 2015, he gave a lecture in Osaka and at GDC 2015 regarding physical input in video games and the Kinect device. He also opened a booth along with Access Games at Penny Arcade Expo East 2015.
On 31 October 2016, he announced his departure from Access Games. A new video game studio was later founded by Suehiro on 1 November 2016 as White Owls Inc. White Owls was formally revealed to the public on 15 January 2017.
Suehiro is a good friend of fellow game creator Goichi Suda. Appearing on a livestream in 2019, the pair revealed they worked on a cancelled PlayStation VR game together, after which they decided to collaborate on a horror title. Just before the stream, Suda titled it Hotel Barcelona, and both envisioned a "light and easy to play" game for mobile platforms or Nintendo Switch. In 2023, it has resurfaced as a slasher film parody action game for consoles and PC.
| 1996 | Kizuna Encounter | SNK | Neo Geo MVS | Scenario |
| 1997 | The Last Blade | SNK | Neo Geo MVS | Scenario |
| 1998 | The Last Blade 2 | SNK | Neo Geo MVS | Scenario |
| 1999 | Whoopee Camp | PlayStation | Designer | |
| 2001 | Extermination | Deep Space | PlayStation 2 | Writer/Planner |
| 2003 | Spy Fiction | Access Games | PlayStation 2 | Writer/Director |
| 2009 | Access Games | PlayStation Portable | Director | |
| 2010 | Deadly Premonition | Access Games | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 | Co-writer/Director/Designer |
| 2010 | Lord of Arcana | Access Games | PlayStation Portable | Co-writer/Designer |
| 2012 | Lord of Apocalypse | Access Games | PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita | Co-writer/Designer |
| 2013 | Toybox Inc., Access Games | PlayStation 3, Windows | Director/Designer | |
| 2014 | Access Games | Xbox One, Windows (2015) | Writer/Director | |
| 2018 | White Owls Inc. | Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows | Writer/Director | |
| 2019 | (Switch Remaster) | Toybox Inc. | Nintendo Switch | Director/Designer |
| 2020 | Toybox Inc., Now Production, White Owls Inc. | Nintendo Switch, Windows (2022) | Co-writer/Director | |
| 2021 | The Good Life | Yukio Futatsugi, White Owls Inc. | Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows | Co-writer/Director/Producer |
| 2022 | Dear Ambivalence: The Mustachioed One, the Witches, and the Suspended Body | Himself, White Owls Inc. | Novel | Author |
| 2024 | Death Game Hotel | White Owls Inc. | Meta Quest, Windows | Director |
| 2025 | Hotel Barcelona | White Owls Inc. | PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S | Writer/Director. Original idea by Goichi Suda |
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