I can’t really drag most of this morning’s underwhelming Nintendo Direct for focusing on old games without acknowledging that the thing that got me most excited is also half a remake of one of my favorite games of all time. After getting a delay into 2027, Danganronpa 2×2 is coming out on January 14, and today we got a much better look at the remake’s new, alternate “Slayhem” route. This new story path will still be set on the tropical paradise of Jabberwock Island, but will have new murder mysteries to solve among the original game’s cast. However, it looks like it won’t just be them on the island, as Spike Chunsoft revealed a mysterious new character who I’m immediately suspicious of.
The first half of the Direct trailer shows scenes from the original Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. The original game has been zhuzhed up a bit from its original PlayStation Portable version, which is good, because even the console and PC ports of that game looked rough when upscaled onto bigger screens. But the trailer also included a surprising number of scenes from the new Slayhem mode that I frankly figured Spike Chunsoft would show basically nothing of in order to keep the mystery alive. We see quite a few scenes and dialogue exchanges that hint at potential new cases and circumstances, though the studio is careful to obscure any new victims or murderers (which hasn’t stopped fans from speculating about potential red herrings in the trailer). Multiple characters make note of “Slayhem” items and “weird cards” they received from the mastermind puppeting the homicidal robot Monokuma and forcing the group to kill one another for his own enjoyment, so it sounds like the black-and-white bear is maybe putting his thumb on the scale with some new “game” mechanic that will incite violence among the cast.
We also see Monokuma straight-up wielding a gun and pointing it at someone off-screen and seemingly executing one of his students over the island’s volcano (my guy loves a callback). There’s also a scene set in the Class Trial courtroom, where players solve the various murder cases, catching fire somehow. Whatever’s happening on Jabberwock Island this time around is somehow more chaotic than what happened in the original Danganronpa 2.
The biggest new detail the trailer reveals is that, somehow, more teenagers are on the island this time than were there originally. If you didn’t watch the Direct itself where it was much more apparent, you might not have caught that there’s a whole new guy taking part in Monokuma’s killing game in 2×2’s Slayhem mode. The character doesn’t appear to be a pre-existing student from any of the other games or, as best as I can tell, any of the external media. His appearance is just generic enough to not hint at what his Ultimate Talent might be, so who knows if he’s even from Hope’s Peak Academy like the other characters. Spike Chunsoft’s revamped website for the game makes no direct reference to him, either, so it seems like the company is keeping whoever he is close to its chest for now.
One theory that’s starting to circulate is that it could be Ryota Mitarai, the Ultimate Animator from the Danganronpa 3 anime, which would make some sense given his role in the larger Danganronpa story, but we won’t spoil that here. That would be interesting, but I’m not entirely convinced they wouldn’t have just outright said as much if that were true, and Ryota is notoriously more meek than this character appears to be.
However, he might not be the only character joining the killing game this time. At the beginning of the trailer, there’s an ad playing on a TV screen that mentions “five islands each with its own unique character.” Danganronpa fans will know that the five islands this references are the distinct islands of the archipelago that makes up Jabberwock. In the original game, each island acted as a stage for a different murder mystery, but also had different vibes than the others. So I’m not sure if “own unique character” here means that each island has its own distinct aesthetics, or if there’s literally a new character for each of them. We reached out for clarification on this and will update if we hear back.
Whatever the case, there’s at least one more player in this death game, and I’m curious what kind of part he’ll play. I have theorized that original protagonist Hajime Hinata might die in the Slayhem route, and though it would likely have been more fun for us to play as an established character after whatever happens to him, I could see this new guy possibly taking on the role of playable detective in this new story. Or he could be another batshit-crazy person who’s going to turn heel and make things worse for the students of Hope’s Peak Academy. For now, fans are calling him John Danganronpa, similar to how they’re calling Persona 6’s leaked bowl-cut protagonist John Persona. Who is this new arrival to Jabberwock Island? Will he end up feeling like a weird Scrappy Doo character bolted onto the side of Danganronpa 2, or will he be a meaningful addition to the story? We’ll find out when Danganronpa 2×2 launches on January 14.
