Giant video game conventions often have a way of surprising you.

At a show like PAX East, those surprises can come from a game showing up seemingly out of the blue, expectations being thwarted by an outstanding demo or a misplaced desire for hygine in a mob of thousands of ravenous fans. However, there was one thing at this year's show in Boston that absolutely did not surprise me, not even in the slightest. If you were to suggest that a free-to-play, loot-based action-survival title from the legendary Suda51 would be absolutely ridiculous, you'd be right on the mark.

After spending thirty bizarre minutes playing Let it Die, which is set to launch exclusively on PlayStation 4 later this year, while chatting with Suda himself, that last bit of innocence left in me may have been totally extinguished. Let it Die, which feels almost like a fast-paced Dark Souls set in the midst of a variety of comically grotesque takes on various Japanese areas, is the type of game that can instantly brighten up a bad day. There are certainly some concerns over what its business model will be, though Suda noted that both continues and cosmetic items will be in the mix. Likewise, its combat occasionally feels stiff and there's some odd uses of various sides of the DualShock 4's oft-forgotten touchpad, but all of that feels secondary to the sheer lunacy that flooded the screen throughout my thirty minutes with the latest creation from one of the most unique minds in gaming.

In Let it Die, players are dropped into a series of quasi-linear stages and tasked with both surviving and obtaining the coolest gear possible. The thing is, there's something very special about how you spawn, and this unique way of dropping into the world is something that Suda51 himself is quite fond of. While playing through Let it Die's two-stage PAX East demo, I asked Suda a very simple question: what element of this game makes you laugh the most. His answer? "The fact that you spawn wearing nothing but your underwear." Even though it's not what's going to happen, it wouldn't seem that outrageous to end this article with that quote, as it's really all that you need to know about Let it Die. There's certainly a dedicated balance to its grotesque elements and the sheer zaniness of its horror, something that Suda noted was important "to make Let it Die more accessible." After all, it's hard to truly get annoyed at a brutal boss fight or a series of untimely deaths when the loading screen that follows hosts the Grim Reaper riding a skateboard. To give you an idea of how weird this thirty minutes was, there was a point where I asked Suda if crowned frogs were the only items that you could eat to regain health, and he mentioned that there were other animals, such as turtles. When I sarcastically mentioned that eating turtles to heal wounds was something that happened in real life, Suda laughed out loud, though the look in his eye seemed to indicate that he wouldn't be opposed to giving it a shot. It was the type of comically innocent look that will bring a smile to my face for years to come.

In addition to having stat-based headgear, shirts and pants, Let it Die gives players the ability to equip weapons in each of their hands, similar to recent FromSoftware titles. Whether this means you choose to play with a crossbow and single-handed club, which was my preferred style of play (Bloodborne vibes are the best vibes), or a massive two-handed axe is totally up to you. Those who prefer their third-person games to have bullets will be happy to know that assault rifles and other lead-based weaponry is available, and the shooting feels oddly like the biggest game of 2016 thus far, Tom Clancy's The Division. Let it Die's loot system also feels quite a bit like Ubisoft's massive open-world shooter, with chests to find and random drops attained by defeating enemies. It seems pretty safe to say that Suda51 and his team (as well as the fine folks at GungHo Online Entertainment) are attempting to create an addictive loot treadmill that will keep players engaged. The fact that a title in this vein, which definitely gives off vibes of Destiny and The Division, might hook a certain type of gamer that feels burned by the idea of spending $60 to jump into a loot-driven shared-world title.

One of the things I made sure to ask Suda51 was the method in which Let it Die is going to handle its content expansion model. Because this is going to have shared multiplayer elements, as well as larger expansions that introduce new areas, the question of whether Let it Die is going to be more like Destiny or Rust arose. One of the biggest frustrations with the former title is that it feels as though there's nothing to do until the new expansion comes out, essentially creating a Netflix-style binge and escape model that feels more geared towards Activision and Bungie's collective pockets than towards the entertainment of its audience. Rust, on the other hand, is a fantastic sandbox that provides a nice social medium for friends and deviants alike to hang out in. According to Suda, "Let it Die is going to hook players though character upgrades, as you'll always be progressing one or more of your characters, but there will also be substantial expansion content that will release periodically." Essentially, it seems as though Let it Die is going to be splitting the difference between the two, creating the event-like nature that we see from the latest Destiny expansion, while still creating an environment that players will feel content logging into every night. Suda also added that Let it Die "is going to be really easy to download," meaning that the barrier to entry of a free-to-play game is much lower than the $60 titles that it will find itself competing against.

Perhaps the scariest proposition surrounding Let it Die is that it's going to launch around the fourth quarter of this year, meaning that it risks getting buried by titles like Gears of War 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Of course, it wouldn't be a conversation with an industry legend if a tough question along these lines was asked. However, Suda didn't necessarily seem worried, noting that, "Those are games that most players will be finished with after two weeks. Let it Die is still going to be around in December and beyond, so players will always have something to fall back on after they finish those other games." The idea of being a persistent free-to-play game on consoles that will simply wait out the storm is certainly fascinating, and Let it Die has all the makings of a game that is deep enough to bring in a hardcore following. The question remains whether its complex control mechanics and downright bizarre tone are going to be a bit too much for a widespread audience. Still, that's something that Suda51 and GungHo are banking on changing thanks to its business model. After all, when you have a free game with a skateboarding Grim Reaper, random flight attendant-based Game Over screen and men in their underpants, it's hard to imagine PlayStation 4 owners not being tempted while browsing the digital store.