Watch On
Nintendo Directs don’t often have much of interest to PC gamers, though this September’s scattershot barrage of Switch 2 trailers did include the news that Hades 2 is about to leave early access. Which is nice. Buried in the avalanche of Zelda nonsense was something else of potential interest to us, however. Something called Danganronpa 2×2.
While it looks like a simple remaster of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the package also includes an alternate storyline the same size as the first one. While the series stalled after the third game, is 2×2 actually going to equal Dangonronpa 4? As the Steam page puts it, “The original setting and cast of characters are back, but a single incident sets off a completely different chain of events! New victims, new culprits, and brand-new tricks await. The new scenario offers the same volume of content as the original, delivering a complete and immersive experience.”
The Danganronpa games are visual novels about gifted students forced to kill each other to escape a trap, with the survivors of each round having to determine which of them is the latest killer—because if they don’t, the killer will be let free and the rest will be executed. If they manage to expose the murderer via a trial riddled with bizarro minigames, then only the guilty party will be executed, and the whole thing will begin again.
Oh, and it’s all being masterminded by a robotic bear who acts like a game show host. That’s important too.
The first in the series, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, is an excellent detective game for anyone who likes batshit twists, and was popular enough to spawn multiple sequels. While Danganronpa 2 has plenty of fans, it doubled down on fanservice and anime tropes and began a process of washing away all the delightful ambiguity of the original. I think you should probably just stick to the original and pretend the sequels and the spin-off anime don’t exist, but I suppose this retelling might be able to undo some of the worst excesses of Danganronpa 2’s previous incarnation.
And maybe it’ll have better localization too. bWe’ll find out when it releases some time in 2026.
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