DYSTHANASIA

About DYSTHANASIA

DYSTHANASIA is a Japanese third-person survival horror game developed by Madowaku Kobo and published by Eroge Japan. It came out on Steam on November 21, 2025 and is also sold on GOG, for Windows PC. The store presents it as coming seventeen years after the cult survival horror DEMONOPHOBIA, and says it was initially banned from sale and removed from the platform it first appeared on because of how intense it is.

A girl wakes in a cold, damp morgue. Blood that has not yet dried clings to the walls and floor, and inhuman moans echo through the building. She is in a research facility warped by malice and roamed by otherworldly beings, and the only way forward is to follow the trail of blood toward the source of the nightmare.

The monsters are deadly. In the screenshots they are tall, pale creatures with jointed limbs, some carrying long saw-like blades, and the store says they can reduce her body to scraps in an instant. You run, hide behind cover, crawl through vents, drag yourself across blood-soaked corridors and blind them with flares, and you use traps in the environment, such as a fire alarm you can set off, to buy a moment. You carry a few items such as energy drinks, which slow how fast you tire when running. Deeper in, the concrete halls give way to rooms whose walls are living red flesh.

The story is told in pieces through notes and incident reports about the creatures, which the staff call Dredges. A player review on Steam calls it a fairly basic stealth game with a handful of puzzles, crude in places, but with an unexpectedly interesting story. There are three difficulty settings, from Assisted, for players who want to focus on the story and puzzles, to Fragile, where the makers say unfair deaths await. A gallery lets you look at the monsters you have unlocked, and two costumes unlock as you play. HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about seven hours.

The game is extremely graphic. Its makers warn of intense violence, horror and trauma, and describe the sounds of tearing flesh and breaking bones and vivid images of brutal death. GOG tags it for sexual content and nudity, and the review describes sexual scenes with the monsters among the death scenes; GOG also lists a free add-on named DYSTHANASIA UNRATED. It suits adult players who want a tense hide-and-escape game in the style of Japanese indie horror and are comfortable with very heavy gore.

How to play DYSTHANASIA

1. Choose a difficulty: Assisted to focus on story and puzzles, up to Fragile, where deaths come without warning.
2. Explore the facility from the morgue onward, following the trail of blood and picking up keys, tools and items.
3. When a creature is near, hide behind cover or crawl into vents and wait for it to pass.
4. Use flares and traps in the environment, such as alarms, to blind or distract a monster and make your escape.
5. Read notes and incident reports and solve the puzzles that open the way out.

Tips

• Treat every monster as something you cannot fight: one mistake is fatal.
• Save flares for moments when you are cornered.
• Use energy drinks before long runs, since they slow how fast you tire.
• Read the incident reports; they tell you about the creatures you will meet.
• The monster gallery only fills when you are caught, so players who want to see it all let themselves be caught on purpose after saving.

Questions