Danganronpa 2×2 Hands-On Preview

I recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with the fine folk at Spike Chunsoft in their new Tokyo headquarters to try a demo of Danganronpa 2×2 (“two by two”), their upcoming “retelling” of the hit 2012 murder mystery visual novel, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Riding the elevator up to their lofty office, I was impressed by the chicness of it all. The lobby was brightly illuminated in white and displayed a small museum of mementos from the company’s history since Spike and Chunsoft merged back in 2012.

Among the hand-drawn Shiren artwork and statuettes from Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher (both games published by Spike Chunsoft in Japan), there was a fair share of Danganronpa. A huge painting from the series’ 15^th anniversary. A PlayStation User’s Choice 2012 award for the original Danganronpa 2 on PSP. A large Monokuma statue, glassed off so it looked like it belonged in a heist film.

We sat on TVs linked to Nintendo Switch 2 versions of Danganronpa 2×2—or rather, a special demo linked to the game, but said to otherwise never reach the public’s hands. Another eagle-eyed player with me caught that the demo we were playing was a callback to a demo of the original Danganronpa 2, a hypothetical murder trial from the game’s opening where the demo’s culprit is someone who could never be the murderer in the full game.

As aware as I was of Danganronpa in the zeitgeist, this was my first time getting my hands on the series. I could immediately see the Ace Attorney influences in the trial sequence, albeit with immediate life-or-death stakes, and I could see how Danganronpa itself influenced later games like Paradise Killer with its 3D first-person navigation and flat, cutout-like character portraits populating the island.

It’s immediately obvious how good the game looks in motion, from the sharp and colorful UI (some Persona 4 vibes here, for sure), and especially in the newly fluid movements of the character sprites. Characters jostle and jeer as they swap from keyart to keyart with each line of dialogue. The sheer number of portraits surprised me. As always, they’re lively, expressive, and often ridiculous, all of this elevated by the updated motions. Danganronpa 2×2 is still fully voice-acted only in key scenes, with the bulk of dialogue written under Zelda-like grunts and guffaws, but the writing was sharp and funny.

With the discovery of a dead body splayed out in a pool of vibrant pink blood, I set about talking to the handful of characters available in the demo, collecting clues from their testimonies and their observations of the crime scene. Before long, Monokuma announced the beginning of the trial.

Danganronpa 2×2’s trials are shaping up to be even more stylish than the original’s. With the culprits standing about in a circle, I chose my truth bullets from my collection of observations which, when translated from Japanese, amount to things like “The person who first discovered the body” or “The jagged blade of the knife.” The game began moving at its own pace through the trial with the characters bickering back and forth and their words flying every which way around the screen. At certain points, yellow weak points would appear, at which time I’d move my target and shoot my truth bullet and the protagonist would interject their Counter!

Again, the brief demo wasn’t intended to be included in the full game, but rather serve as a taste for the updated aesthetics of Danganronpa 2×2. As the name suggests, on top of the retold original story, there is a new side story said to be as large, if not larger than the original, essentially making this two games in one.

The music and art direction really impressed me, and I walked away feeling like I needed to fill some Danganronpa-shaped holes in my life, pronto. There isn’t a confirmed release date for Danganronpa 2×2 yet besides a general 2026, but that just gives me time to revisit the first game.