Death end re;Quest

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Bring her out of a broken game alive. Most endings do not.

Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Switch
Stores: Steam, GOG
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (77% of 1,038 reviews); Metacritic 71 on PS4 (29 critics), 73 on Switch; 4.4 of 5 on the PlayStation Store (2.2K ratings)
Length: about 25 hours for the main story
Players: 1
Controls: Keyboard and mouse or controller (full controller support)
Made by: Compile Heart, Idea Factory
Released: 2018

On GOG: one of the GOG horror games.

No. 23 of the artificial intelligence horror games

Get it on Steam PlayStation Store (PS4)Nintendo eShop (Switch)GOG

What frightens A programmer finds that his missing colleague Shina has been trapped for a year inside the VR game they were making, now overrun by bugs and glitched-out monsters, and she can only leave by reaching a perfect ending with a 1% chance of success. Wrong choices lead to bad endings that Steam's own notice describes as graphically gory scenes and vivid written accounts of characters' deaths.
Content: gore, graphic death scenes, blood, violence, strong language, suggestive themes, fanservice.

Death end re;Quest is a Compile Heart RPG that switches between visual-novel scenes in the real world and turn-based battles inside a bug-infested virtual game. A programmer tries to guide his trapped colleague to the one ending that frees her, while wrong choices end in gruesome Death Ends.

About Death end re;Quest

Death end re;Quest was made by Compile Heart and Idea Factory. It came out on PlayStation 4 in Japan in April 2018 and in the West in February 2019, reached Steam on 16 May 2019, and arrived on Nintendo Switch in Japan in December 2020 and in the West in April 2021. It is played in English, Japanese or Traditional Chinese, with English and Japanese voices.

Arata Mizunashi, a game programmer, gets an email from Shina Ninomiya, a colleague who vanished nearly a year earlier. Together they had been building World's Odyssey, an immersive virtual world. Now he learns Shina has been stuck inside it the whole time, the game is infested with bugs, and some force stops him pulling her out. Her only way out is to finish the game and reach the perfect ending, which has a 1% chance of success.

You switch between two sides. In the real world, Arata investigates in visual-novel scenes; in the game world, Shina and the characters she meets explore dungeons and fight glitched monsters in turn-based battles, where you can even switch the battle's genre. Choices matter, and the wrong ones end the story in a Death End. Steam's notice warns these range from graphically gory scenes to vivid textual descriptions of deaths, and reviewers found them gruesome and, at times, spooky.

The play between the bad endings is often light, with bright anime characters and some fanservice. A main-story run takes about 25 hours by HowLongToBeat's count, and one player who finished the PS4 version on GOG reports around 41 hours. It suits JRPG and visual novel players who want a darker mystery with real stakes on every choice.

How to play Death end re;Quest

Read the real-world chapters as Arata, and investigate what is happening to the game.
Explore the dungeons of World's Odyssey as Shina and her companions.
Fight glitched monsters in turn-based battles, using skills and the bugs on the field.
Choose carefully at story decisions; a wrong one can lead to a Death End.
Keep going toward the one ending that frees Shina.

Screenshots

Death end re;Quest screenshot: Clea with a glowing scythe faces dark beasts on red movement tiles in a blue-lit night field, with turn order and party HP shown

Death end re;Quest screenshot: a lavender-haired girl with glowing pink spider-leg armor stands by a lake below rocky cliffs under a blue sky, minimap at top left

Death end re;Quest screenshot: turn-based battle in a blue hall, Lily in orange facing glitchy monsters on glowing tiles, with party HP/SP and Field Bug 100% shown

Death end re;Quest screenshot: cat-eared Al attacks dark monsters in a red canyon battle, with turn order and Shina, Lily and Al's HP and SP shown.

Death end re;Quest screenshot: battle command menu with Shina selecting the Rokudein skill, party HP and SP at the bottom, in an ornate hall

Death end re;Quest screenshot: Lucil, pink-haired and holding a wand, casts Apolonis (Glitch) in battle, with glitchy magenta wings and the party HP panels below.

Death end re;Quest screenshot: Celica, silver-haired, crouches on a glowing cyan blade among white lilies during the Fantasia (Glitch) skill, party HP bars below

Tips

Save before every major choice so a Death End does not cost you hours.
If you only want the main story, critics note the game can show you which choices keep it on track.
Watch the field bugs in battle; they can help or hurt your party.

Questions

Is Death end re;Quest a horror game?

It is a JRPG with a horror story: its many bad endings are gory and graphic, and reviewers call it gruesome and at times spooky, though moment-to-moment play is lighter.

How many endings does it have?

There is a main path toward freeing Shina and, as reviewers stress, a great many bad endings that wrong choices lead to.

How long is Death end re;Quest?

HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about 24.5 hours, about 35 hours with side content and about 44.5 hours to complete everything.

What platforms is Death end re;Quest on?

PC (Steam and GOG), PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Is there a sequel?

Yes. Death end re;Quest 2 followed on PlayStation 4, PC and later Nintendo Switch.