Neo: The World Ends with You

Neo: The World Ends with You is an upcoming action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and h.a.n.d. and published by Square Enix. The game is a sequel to the 2007 video game The World Ends with You. It is planned to be released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in July 2021, and later in 2021 for Microsoft Windows. It features a new cast of characters playing the Reapers' Game in Shibuya, and unlike the first game will use three-dimensional graphics.

Returning staff for the game include Tetsuya Nomura as creative producer and character designer, Gen Kobayashi as character designer and Hiroyuki Itou who was game designer in the original but now as director. Takeharu Ishimoto, the composer for the original game, though no longer a full time employee of Square Enix, confirmed he will also be composing the music for the sequel.

Gameplay

Unlike the first title in the series, Neo is a fully 3D title. Players can control multiple characters at once during combat and attack opponents with "psych" abilities granted by items called "pins". Each character can equip one pin of the over 300 available, and different pin groupings can create combination attacks. Wearable "threads" also give a boost to the players characters abilities. Common game enemies are called "Noise", which are negative emotions that have come to life. The scanning ability the player uses to search for these enemies allows the player to read characters thoughts.

Story

Setting: The game takes place in a recreated and stylized version of the Shibuya district in Tokyo. Unlike the first game's depiction of Shibuya, places such as Tower Records and Parco keep their names instead of using different ones such as Towa Records and Molco. As with the anime, some of the elements of the game had been modernized for the sequel, such as the use of smartphones rather than earlier flip-style cell phones and the appearance of the game's 104 building matches the current appearance of the real-life Shibuya 109 building.

Characters: The main protagonist and playable character is Rindo Kanade (奏 竜胆, Kanade Rindō), a Player in the Reapers' Game. In the Game, he is partnered with his classmate Tosai Furesawa (觸澤 桃斎, Furesawa Tōsai (nicknamed "Fret" (フレット, Furetto)) and college student Nagi. They make up a team of Players called the "Wicked Twisters". Each character has a unique ability in the Reapers' Game that comes into play during gameplay: Rindo can change the past with "Replay", Fret can remind people of things they've forgotten with "Remind", and Nagi can go into people's minds with "Dive".

Other characters that help or oppose Rindo and his friends include Kaichi Susuki (周々木 鹿ー, Susuki Kaichi) of the "Ruinbringers" team, Kanon Tachibana (立花 果遠, Tachibana Kanon) of the "Variabeauties" team, and the Reapers Shoka Sakurane (桜音 紫陽花, Sakurane Shōka) and Tanzo Kubo (久網 旦蔵, Kubō Tanzō). Rindo is also supported by "Swallow", a mysterious individual that he communicates with through a social media game and text messages.

Returning from the first game are antagonists Sho Minamimoto, Koki Kariya, and Uzuki Yashiro, with Sho appearing as a party member and another of Rindo's teammates. Tsugumi Matsunae and Coco Atarashi, who appeared in the first game's iOS and Nintendo Switch re-releases, also appear. Neku Sakuraba, the main protagonist from the first game, also appears in the story in an unknown capacity.