Yandere Simulator’s demo now has an experimental prequel mode with 10 rivals included

Publication date of the original Japanese article: 2021-10-11 12:28 (JST)
Translated by. Ryuki Ishii

YandereDev announced on October 10 that Yandere Simulator’s demo now includes a new game mode called “1980s mode.” This is the major update previously known as the “10 Rivals Update,” and it is available to download from the official website. 1980s Mode acts as a prequel to the main game, starring a different protagonist.

I’ll briefly explain what Yandere Simulator is first. It’s a stealth action game featuring a high school girl named Ayano Aishi, aka Yandere-chan. One day, she meets a Senpai at her school and falls in love with him at first sight. However, beloved Senpai is surrounded by other rival girls who are also seeking a chance to get to know him better. Yandere-chan, with her twisted love for Senpai, decides to eliminate the rival girls one by one.

The game takes place in Yandere-chan’s school. The objective of the game is to assassinate the rivals without getting caught. To do so, you have to investigate the campus and gradually learn each character’s behavioral pattern, patiently waiting for the right opportunity to strike. You can participate in club activities along the way as well. If the scene of the murder is discovered by other students, you will be detained, and Senpai will dislike you. As you can tell from this concept, Yandere Simulator is inspired by the Hitman series.

The game has been in development since 2014, and had gone through a lot of troubles, with a publisher joining and leaving the project, along with occasional pauses in development. Although progress has been made, YandereDev is facing a major issue; creating rivals requires a whole lot of time and resources.

According to the dev, “Yandere Simulator is meant to have 10 rival girls for the player to eliminate over the course of 10 weeks. And each rival is supposed to feel as unique as possible with different behaviors, cut scenes, events, obstacles, and interactions with Senpai so that they all feel distinct from one another. However, all of those things would require a tremendous amount of new animations and voice acting and at this point in time, I just don’t have the resources necessary to acquire those things.”

YandereDev goes on to say that while it is possible to release bare-bones versions of the rivals, “that would be so lame,” and it would disappoint the backers. It is troubling, because not being able to implement the rivals means, the 10-week structure of the game cannot be tested out, and the developer will not be able to gain feedback from the players. This is where the idea of 1980s Mode comes in.

The protagonist of 1980s Mode is Ryoba, the mother of Ayano Aishi. It takes place in 1989, and unlike the main game, the story of 1980s Mode is already complete with an ending. Your goal is to eliminate the 10 rivals, each with “unique routine and a set of circumstances that makes it difficult for the player to just walk up to them and kill them at the start of the day.” How you approach them is up to you, but “some rivals perform a unique action or put themselves into unique circumstances that allow them to die in a scripted way.” Also, unlike the main game, other students are not present at the school.

This mode was created using existing assets, and the 10 rivals exist purely for the purpose of testing out the 10-week system. They are separate from the 10 rivals planned for the main game. That said, the prequel will have a canon elimination method for each rival, and the ending will have “3D cutscenes with voiced characters.” With the addition of 1980s Mode, players can now experience the 10-week structure and the developer gets to improve the main game based on their feedback.

Yandere Simulator is still in development. YandereDev announced a plan for a crowdfunding campaign last year, stating that the game’s release window and content would change depending on its success level. The said campaign hasn’t started yet, but it seems like YandereDev managed to complete the 1980s Mode on his own, which was initially planned to be a stretch goal for the campaign.

YandereDev is solely developing the game, with monthly support from Patreon supporters and other sponsors. Yandere Simulator‘s release window is yet to be announced, but it seems like the project is on a good trajectory.