During this year’s Tokyo Game Show, AUTOMATON West had the opportunity to participate in Spike Chunsoft’s hands-on event for Danganronpa 2×2.
Scheduled to release on January 14, 2027, Danganronpa 2×2 is a remake of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the second installment in the Danganronpa series, which originally launched for the PSP in 2012. The new game features a full remake of the original story, as well as the eagerly anticipated Slayhem Mode, which offers a completely new scenario with new culprits, victims, murder tricks, and even a new character.
At the event, I was able to get my hands on the Danganronpa 2×2 Chapter 1 Class Trial, as well as the visual novel part of the Slayhem Mode, and in this article I’ll be sharing everything I’ve learned about the game so far. Please note that the article contains minor spoilers for Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (and by extension, other entries in the Danganronpa franchise), so if you’re looking to experience the game completely blind, I’d encourage you to play the original one first or patiently wait until January for the revamped version. That being said, completing Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is (in my personal opinion) a must before you jump into anything Danganronpa 2.
First, let’s talk about the Original Mode. From what I’ve been able to see playing the Chapter 1 Class Trial, the script, flow of the story, and even minigame placements are pretty much exactly the same as in the 2012 version. The biggest difference the 2027 version brings after almost 15 years is the visual presentation. While the 2012 version, which was originally made for the PSP screen, is naturally visually denser, the 2027 feels a lot “cleaner” in comparison. This is not to say that one version is better than the other, but I do think that the revamped visuals help the new version achieve what it’s trying to do.
Specifically, a lot of focus seems to be put on fluidity of motion and snappier effects, and everything else seems to be built around that. The UI is much “simpler,” and actions like shooting the Truth Bullets or slashing through your opponent’s claims in the Rebuttal Showdown feel pretty satisfying thanks to the smoothness of the animation and eye-catching effects that follow. Character sprites have also been redrawn, with visibly thinner line art and slight gradient rendering that gives them more three-dimensionality while still preserving the charm of Rui Komatsuzaki’s original drawings. Precisely because the designs are “cleaner” and more polished, they’re able to pull off actual animations – which is also a new thing that Danganronpa 2×2 brings to the table. Many times throughout the story, and often unexpectedly, the character sprites will “burst” into a fully animated expression. Though I found them a bit jarring when I first saw them, I do think the animations pack a punch and add on to the “bizarre” feel that Danganronpa is incomplete without.
From what I’ve been able to play so far, the Original Mode of Danganronpa 2×2 is a pretty faithful remake that doesn’t take away from the charm of the original game, adding a bunch of snappy visual upgrades to make playing more enjoyable on modern systems. On the other hand, since both the story and the gameplay will be the same down to a T, (judging by the Chapter 1 Class Trial), people who have just recently finished Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair and don’t find it necessary to brush up on how the story went can directly jump into the Slayhem Mode.
The part of the Slayhem Mode I got to play was the exact moment when the story goes “off the rails.” Gathering all the students together, Monokuma presents them with the first murder motive – to retrieve their erased memories of the days spent at Hope’s Peak Academy – which is exactly how the plot of the original first chapter of the game goes. However, the big twist here is that, at the start of the game, Monokuma hands out each of the students a mysterious box, revealed to contain the so-called “Slayhem Items.”
While most of the Slayhem Items are some kind of weapon distributed to promote immediate violence among the island-bound kids, there are also other items that can help with survival, but also completely useless duds. It seems like the students don’t know about each other’s Slayhem Items, so a big part of the mystery (and most likely the murder tricks) will be having to figure out the owners of the items – and what the items are in the first place. With the first chapter starting on much higher stakes, it will be interesting to see how this changes the outcome of the game, and where Danganronpa 2×2 is positioned within the overarching storyline in Danganronpa (How will it all work out in the context of V3 ‘s ending?).
Sadly, this time I wasn’t able to meet Sakutaro Higashi, the “infamous” new character who is supposed to find himself caught up in Monokuma’s Class Trials. The recent trailer aired on Nintendo Direct also teased what seem to be new Class Trial mechanics for the Slayhem Mode, which is also something I’m looking forward to experiencing once the full game releases.
Danganronpa 2×2 is scheduled to release on January 14, 2027, for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam/Epic Games Store).
