This is what happens when you refuse to despair, as Spike Chunsoft’s quirky Battle Royale-styled visual novel game series Danganronpa has now surpassed 10 million copies sold across its five titles.
Announced via the studio’s official site, this milestone follows the 15th anniversary of the beloved Japanese game series back in November this year, and serves as a testament to a franchise that, while niche, has made global waves among its dedicated fanbase.
As a series of games surrounding high school students who are forced to kill each other by an adorable yet creepy bear plushie, the franchise began in 2010 on the PlayStation Portable with its debut title, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, which was initially released exclusively in Japan. Since then, the series has seen four more titles – Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (2012), Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (2014), Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (2017), and Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp (2021), each building upon the original title’s core concepts with new characters and plot lines.
Renowned among its fanbase for its incredible writing and distinctive characters, the series is broadly based on the visual novel game structure, although each title also includes additional gameplay elements such as exploration, relationship building, and courtroom-like trials to suss out guilty parties, similar to Capcom’s Ace Attorney franchise. Apart from its five mainline games, the series has also seen a slew of spin-off media, including anime, manga, and novel adaptations.
The next title in the series, Danganronpa 2×2, is set to release in 2026 for modern generation consoles and PC, and will be a remake of the second game in the franchise, which not only revamps the original game’s main scenario, but will feature a brand new one too.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Kaylyn Lim
Si Jia
