I had the chance to sit down with David Robinson of Redacted Studios, the folks working on the hot new Afro Samurai follow-up, now known as Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma. The game is developed outside of Bandai Namco, by a team made up of staff that worked on the previous game.

While the game franchise is directly based on the manga illustrated by Takashi Okazaki, Robinson said the relationship between Redacted, Okazaki-san, and Gonzo Studios (the studio that produced the anime) is very close and that all hands are on board to really bring the game to life.

I learned that Afro 2 has been in development for over half a year now, and that while they originally had the game in the Afro Engine, they have completed the port to Unity 5. Robinson mentioned that porting the game between engines was pretty grueling, although development is much smoother now.

The demo I was shown was roughly two hours into the game, featuring Kuma (formerly Afro’s childhood friend, Jinno), who is now the protagonist of the game. I did get confirmation that both Samuel Jackson and RZA are returning in the sequel, with Samuel Jackson reprising his role of Afro, and RZA composing some of the songs in the game (as well as getting his own character and story).

The primary focus of the demo was a club-like dojo, adorned with both gorgeous women and—you guessed it—lots of bad ninjas! The game definitely retains the somewhat watercolor, pastel-esque feel of the previous game, something that is quite the spectacle to see in motion. Music keeps bursting from the girls’ turntable, providing an environmental hazard for Kuma to avoid (else he gets damaged) while fighting ongoing waves of ninjas.

Each level will be focused on one particular musician, the first of which being RZA. “We have some really cool hip hop talent lined up for it,” Robinson said. “But a lot of it has to do with, ‘what’s the cool story that we can tell?’ We’re not trying to make chapters for hip hop’s sake, we’re making this great story about Kuma and his family.” Ninja Ninja is also back, because how could Kuma plug in the Afro Droid chip without taking in all of its data (including Ninja Ninja)?

An interesting tidbit came out regarding Mos Def, where a character based around Mos was heavily planned for the original game. Despite entire scripts with Mos Def being written, he didn’t make the cut. RZA’s character is reportedly “almost done”, so we should be getting a preview soon.

So how does Afro 2 play? The demo I saw was running off a PC, and it ran pretty well. The combat is broken up into three fighting styles now: Kuma Style, Afro Style, and Master Style. Kuma Style is a very fast and powerful style that also lets you interact with terrain, as well as track objects in 3D space. With Kuma being a cyborg and using fight styles based off chips, if you get damaged too much using one particular style, that style will be disabled until you can recover. With a single difficulty, gameplay is focused on making players switch between styles, or perfecting one.

Afro Style is a more calculated and tactful style that rewards players that focus more on reacting to your enemies, like via parrying, deflecting, or flanking. Master Style is based off both Afro and Jinno’s swordmaster, where you essentially unlock your true swordsmanship potential, i.e. by dicing up 5, 10+ enemies at the same time.

Combat was, ultimately a very satisfying looking experience. Switching between fighting styles is very easy to do, and deflecting arrows, knives, and parrying enemy attacks definitely seems like something of a second nature. One particular favorite move I saw was Kuma jumping across the room, via his enemies’ heads, in the Afro Style.

On the subject of how influential Afro Samurai has been to the African-American community, Robinson said:

“There’s absolutely a sense of attachment to the franchise. I see a lot of urban kids, I’ve gone to a lot of urban schools to talk about games. Most of the teachers don’t understand what Afro Samurai is, in the sort of mature sense. When they say ‘Mr. Robinson worked on Afro Samurai,’ the kids go from ‘who’s this dude?” to ‘WOW!’ Yeah, it’s really cool.”

When I tell them that the whole franchise was created by a guy in Japan who has never been here, who fell in love with the culture by watching Soul Train, and that being black and understanding what hip hop is is not a black thing. We don’t own it, and as humans, we can all endeavor to contribute and be a part of a culture that allows creators to make something from a culture that is alien to them. Okazaki-san knows nothing of what the afro means to African Americans, and he doesn’t need to! He created something that is indelible now in that culture and I don’t think there is a young black kid who doesn’t know who Afro Samurai is.”

I think Robinson’s sentiments echo throughout the Afro Samurai franchise, and most of what we believe in here at Niche Gamer. I’m only excited for the game, and can’t wait to see more of it—most especially the bloodier combat!

Redacted Studios are looking to ship Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma some time in the second quarter of this year across PC (via Steam), Playstation 4, and Xbox One.