Upcoming Kodaka and Uchikoshi Collab Should Play To Both Authors’ Strengths

Highlights

• Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi announced their new collaboration project, which will focus on their strengths in mystery, horror, and visual novel genres.
• Their first collaboration, World’s End Club, received mixed reviews, with critics praising the characters and story but feeling that the gameplay fell flat compared to their solo work.
• The upcoming project should feature tricky puzzles, a dark plot, and a solid mystery for players to solve. More details will likely be revealed soon.

Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka and Zero Escape and AI: The Somnium Files creator recently announced that they are once again collaborating. Little is known about the currently untitled project, although the pair did hint that more information will be revealed during 2024. On his personal X account, Danganronpa‘s Kodaka stated that the release was “not too far away,” leading some fans to theorize that it will debut in late 2024 or early 2025. This collaboration, the pair’s second, should play to their strengths within the mystery, horror, and visual novel genres.

Kazutaka Kodaka is best known for the Danganronpa series, a series of games in which groups of elite high school students are trapped in various scenarios and must successfully commit and get away with murder to escape. In 2023, he stepped away from Danganronpa to release Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, an original mystery title. Kotaro Uchikoshi is best known for the Infinity, Zero Escape, and AI: The Somnium Files visual novel series, with his most recent release being AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative in 2022. The two men’s works are often compared because both feature twisty mysteries, quirky detective characters, and surprisingly gruesome deaths.

Kodaka and Uchikoshi’s First Collaboration Received Mixed Reviews

Previously, Kodaka and Uchikoshi collaborated on World’s End Club, which released for Apple Arcade in 2020 and Nintendo Switch and PC in 2021. The game received mixed reviews, with critics praising the fun characters and interesting story but feeling that the puzzle-platformer gameplay fell flat. In particular, many felt that World’s End Club did not live up to either Kodaka or Uchikoshi’s previous solo work. The game was also criticized for initially presenting itself as a “death game” similar to Zero Escape and Danganronpa but then abandoning this plot in the first chapter in favor of a lighter, more kid-friendly story.

World’s End Club is so far the only game the two have created together at their co-founded studio Too Kyo Games. They have, however, both contributed work on two anime series, 2020’s Akudama Drive and 2022’s Tribe Nine. However, Kodaka’s recent social media activity hints that the upcoming work may be more in line with himself and Uchikoshi’s previous projects. On X, he said the following:

The scenario for the game I’m currently working on is so crazy that I end up working more than doing anything else. Even when things are tough or troublesome, I put more into working and writing the scenario than I do into my free time and resting. I think this might be the first time I’ve been so obsessed with work.

The New Collaboration Should Focus On The Pair’s Strengths

Kodaka and Uchikoshi’s upcoming project, which was teased with single piece of key art that seems to be designed by Danganronpa series regular Rui Komatsuzaki, will hopefully have more in common with their popular visual novel series. Some elements worth featuring include:

• Trickly puzzles similar to those featured in AI: The Somnium Files.
• A dark plot with high stakes, possibly involving multiple character deaths.
• A greater focus on character interaction compared to World’s End Club.
• A “deadly game” or otherwise unique and tense setting, like Danganronpa or Zero Escape.
• A central mystery which the player must solve.

It remains to be seen exactly what the upcoming game, which may be called Limit x Despair, will involve. The single revealed art piece is promising, however, as it features many elements associated with Kodaka and Uchikoshi. These include a tanuki who may be a mascot character, like Danganronpa‘s Monokuma or Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward’s Zero 3, a masked figure with a villainous air, and a central character who looks like an ordinary high school girl. Hopefully, more information about the collaboration, including a release date, will be announced soon.