‘Danganronpa 2×2’ Confirms Series Creator Kazutaka Kodaka Providing “Original Concept And Trick Design”
While many lamented its announcement as yet another Metal Gear Survive moment, Spike Chunsoft has confirmed that their upcoming Danganronpa 2×2 remake will feature heavy creative involvement from eccentric series creator Kazutaka Kodaka.
Making its debut as part of the September 12th Nintendo Direct presentation, Danganronpa 2×2 will, per Spike Chunsoft, present players with “a brand-new scenario based on Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.”
“The setting and cast of characters remain the same, but a certain incident triggers a completely different chain of events with different victims, culprits, and tricks. This new scenario offers a volume of content on par with the original.”
Given that Kodaka is no longer with Spike Chunsoft, having left in 2017 in order to help co-found the independent Too Kyo Games studio, many fans worried that for all the bells and whistles provided by its new content and gameplay mechanics, Danganronpa 2×2 would be either a well-intentioned but ultimately hollow attempt to emulate the series creator’s style at best, or at worst a soulless cash grab.
Thankfully, these anxieties can now be put to bed, as whatever faults the game may end up having, they will not result from Kodaka’s lack of involvement.
As machine translated by DeepL, asked during a recent interview with Japanese video game news outlet Famitsu as to whether or not either Kodaka or his character design partner Rui Komatsuzaki would be involved with Danganronpa 2×2 in any capacity, Spike Chunsoft producer Shohei Sakakibara confirmed that both would be contributing their talents to the game – Kodaka directly as a supervisor and Komatsuzaki indirectly via Too Kyo Games.
“Yes. Mr. Kodaka is providing supervision and contributing to the original concept and trick design this time. We are firmly collaborating with Too Kyo Games on development.”
In addition to this reveal, Sakakibara also spoke as to both the origins of Danganronpa 2×2:
“Initially, we considered remaking or rebooting the first game. We started planning with the premise of changing the story while keeping the world and characters intact. However, we realized that altering the story of the first Danganronpa—which forms the core foundation of the series—would have too significant an impact.”
“Therefore, after much deliberation, we concluded that using Danganronpa 2 would allow us to offer a new experience to our players without disrupting the core world. This led to the current project format.”
As well as the general differentiators between it and the original Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
“The opening is exactly the same, but shortly after it begins, a certain event occurs, and from there, the story takes a drastically different shape. Also, it’s not that the scenario branches partway through; the new scenario and the remake are two completely separate, independent stories.”
“The scenario has barely been touched. It has been remade to fit the new system. All the characters have been redrawn, and the backgrounds have been redesigned from the original Jabberwock Island. The hotels and other things have been given a completely new design, full of tropical resort vibes.”
“All of the voices for the remake have been re-recorded. I know I’ve said this before, but we were able to ask all of the original voice actors to voice the characters except for Monokuma and Monomi [as voice actors Nobuyo Ōyama and Tarako, who at differing times provided Monokuma’s voice, and Takako Kiyakado, who provided Monomi’s, have all passed away].”
Further, Sakakibara informed Famitsu that while Danganronpa 2×2 would, like its source material, narratively follow the first Danganronpa game, the Danganronpa Zero light novel, and the PSP original Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls, he could not speak to canon relationship to the sequel anime Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak High School.
“Regarding that, I hope you’ll look forward to seeing what kind of conclusion this 2×2 reaches.”
Unfortunately for those curious, while Sakakibara was generously forthcoming with details regarding the game’s story, he did not give the same treatment to its potential gameplay changes, instead asking Famitsu – and fans – to “Please wait for further updates.”
At current, Danganronpa 2×2 – which also comes packaged with the original Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair – is set to release some time in 2026.
NEXT: ‘Danganronpa’ Studio Spike Chunsoft Declares “The Japanese Market Is Still The Most Important To Us”
