Fans of the Danganronpa series have been hoping for a new game for years — it’s been almost a decade since Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. They got their wish in a surprising form during the September 12 Nintendo Direct event: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is being re-released alongside an all-new scenario called Danganronpa 2×2. 2×2 is the first time the series has experimented with redoing a killing game with the same set of characters, and there’s one obvious trap that this new scenario needs to avoid falling into.
Danganronpa 2×2 Can’t Just Reverse The Original Game’s Death Order
The tempting “easy route” that Danganronpa 2×2 needs to avoid is simply having the original game’s survivors killed in the first few chapters and allowing the Chapter 1 and 2 casualties to make it all the way to the end. There are definitely a few early eliminations who could use some fleshing out — the Ultimate Impostor, who disguises himself as Byakuya Togami from the original Danganronpa, is one major example — but not every character who killed or was killed early needs to make it all the way to the end. Uncomfortably flirtatious chef Teruteru Hanamura, for example, doesn’t feel like someone with much staying power, especially given his frantic desire to leave the killing game as quickly as possible and return home to his mother.
Some of the killing game‘s survivors are also individuals who could likely play a major role in a revamped story. Chief among them is Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, the Ultimate Gangster, who undergoes a major growth arc in the original game and has a deep connection with fellow student Peko Pekoyama. For those who have played the original game and know the kind of character development Fuyuhiko has in him, it seems impossible to imagine a story where he’s the first or second to meet his end.
Instead Of Just Flipping The Order, Danganronpa 2×2 Should Focus On “Change Points”
Instead of thinking about “characters who survived need to go out early and those who died early need to make it,” Danganronpa 2×2 could most effectively craft an interesting new story by focusing on points that can cause major change to the narrative. One such factor is Nagito Komaeda. With his fixation on finding “hope” by forcing the others to work together, Komaeda drives many of the story’s events even beyond his death. If Komaeda is eliminated early, or undergoes a change in motivation or life philosophy, almost everything in Danganronpa 2 would happen differently.
Another area that could spark a major change in Danganronpa 2×2 is motives. Compared to the other Danganronpa games, Goodbye Despair focuses heavily on the motives Monokuma provides each chapter, such as the strange video game “Twilight Syndrome Murder Case” in Chapter 2, the Despair Disease in Chapter 3, and potential starvation in Chapter 4. Removing or changing these motives would likely cause characters to act very differently than they did in the original version — in particular, if characters never found out about the past events revealed in “Twilight Syndrome,” Chapter 2’s murder would almost certainly not happen. The Despair Disease is a flexible motive that could affect different characters and have different effects, which could also spark major change.
Finally, there is one particularly major decision that could result in Danganronpa 2×2 feeling like a completely different experience to Goodbye Despair: changing the playable protagonist to someone other than Hajime Hinata. Hajime does show up in the Nintendo Direct trailer, but the Danganronpa series has played tricks with its fans regarding protagonists before. Fans will have to see if any more hints about the game’s new story are revealed, or if they simply have to wait until its release in 2026 to discover the truth.
