On November 25, 2025, Spike Chunsoft’s classic game “Danganronpa: School of Hope and High School Students of Despair” celebrated its 15th anniversary.This work, which was launched on the PSP platform on November 25, 2010, is still hailed as a milestone in the field of reasoning games by players around the world for its unique "high-speed reasoning action" gameplay and subversive plot settings.

On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the release, Kodakawa Tsuyoshi, one of the senior producers of the game, posted a long post on social media with emotion: "This game has changed my life. Thank you everyone for your support. Thank you, "Danganronpa", I will always love you most."

Looking back on the development process, the game was originally tentatively named "15 Girls Killing Period" or "Our 7-Day Survival War". Although it already had the core concept of "psychological pop school mystery suspense", due to poor internal reviews, the team innovatively proposed a new game category of "high-speed reasoning action".In the second proposal, iconic systems such as 2.5D dynamic graphics and the execution of companions through majority decision were formally formed.

The game is set in the closed Hope's Peak Academy, where 15 students with "super high school-level" talents are forced to start killing each other on campus.Only the murderer who has completed the murder and has not been identified can graduate. If the prisoner cannot be correctly identified in the "school-level judge", everyone except the murderer will be executed.This cruel rule allows the characters performed by the luxurious voice actors to exit the stage at any time, greatly increasing the uncertainty of the plot.

Thanks to the good reputation spread by word of mouth, the game achieved a sales counterattack.On November 4, 2021, "Danganronpa Trilogy Collection + Happy Danganronpa S", which includes the series trilogy and derivative board games, will be launched on the Switch platform.What is even more exciting for fans is that the remake of "Super Danganronpa 2" and a new script "Super Danganronpa 2×2" will be launched on multiple platforms in 2026. The voice actor of Monokuma will also be taken over by Wasabi Mizuta.

Kodaka Kazugo’s complete thoughts are as follows:

It’s been fifteen years——

At that time, I often said to my team members: "Even if the sales may not be ideal, we have to make a cult game that will still be talked about by core players ten years from now." At that time, the team was small, with limited budget and time, and I didn't think we had any particularly outstanding talents.Because of this, I have been thinking about how to break through, and finally, with the full efforts of my team members, I finally completed the work.

During the development period, when I rode my bicycle through the streets late at night every day, HIDE's "everfree" was played on a loop in my headphones.The lyrics "The dream that was scorned by others is still trembling in my heart" especially touched me.

On the day of the release, I quietly watched the players outside the store who came to buy it, and I also heard some comments about the unsatisfactory opening sales. At that moment, I deeply felt my limitations.But as a result, the game has been loved for fifteen years.To be honest, I know that this is inseparable from my partners, players, and luck.

Although it is rare to see many of the friends I met back then, everyone I met through this game has completely changed my life.I will always remember this gratitude until one day the market no longer needs my works. Even if the creative journey is difficult, I will stick to my creative ideas - this may be the best explanation I can give.

Sometimes I want to find a chance to recall the stories of those years, but I don’t want to become an old man dwelling on the past.

Thank you all for your support so far.

But I prefer to believe that my journey has just begun.

Although the way of fighting has changed, as long as I keep fighting until the last moment and keep sprinting forward even at the end, I will be satisfied.

Thank you, Danganronpa.

I will always love you the most.