Corpse Party II: Darkness Distortion is set for a 2024 release in Japan. Platforms haven’t been given yet.
According to Gematsu, the new game has been described as “an all-new entry and true sequel to the series.”
You might find yourself puzzled by this news, thinking that Corpse Party II already exists. The series’ play order was already confusing, and it looks like it just got a bit more so.
Yes, it seems this is a different game entirely from Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient, which I included on a list of upcoming horror games back in 2018. That one is an episodic game intended to be released in four parts, but only the first chapter and an extra chapter are out.
Meanwhile, Darkness Distortion was first teased 3 years ago in a short video that ran through the timeline of the series before showing the words “Darkness Distortion.”
Now it’s finally been officially announced as a new entry in the Corpse Party series.
In between Corpse Party and Dead Patient are three other games, Book of Shadows, Birthday Bash, and Blood Drive, all of which are canon parts of the series. At least the 2021 remake is the most definitive version of the first Corpse Party, which previously made the series look even more daunting thanks to multiple versions that each had various added content.
Will Dead Patient ever be finished? Who knows? But I’m excited to see a new game announced. I enjoyed the 2021 Corpse Party remake, and I’m looking forward to progressing through the series ahead of Darkness Distortion.
Yesterday, the developers announced Chicken Police – Into the Hive.
The Hive is a location that was mentioned during the first Chicken Police, but never visited.
In this world of anthropomorphic animals, the Hive is where a lot of insects live. Tension with the Hive and prejudice against insects are part of Chicken Police’s backdrop, so it should be interesting to see what happens now that the sequel is taking us into the Hive.
(While playing the first game, I expected to go there because of how often it was referenced, but instead it was worldbuilding unrelated to the current mystery. It makes sense that it would take center stage for a sequel.)
According to the description on the game’s Steam page, Sonny and Marty investigate a new case that takes them into the Hive, where they come across a worldwide conspiracy. It also says they’ll “face the darkest reaches of their past.”
It’s currently set for 2024.
The first Chicken Police left me pleasantly surprised by how its bizarre premise of playing a chicken detective led to a believable world and compelling noir mystery. I’m looking forward to seeing what the sequel has in store.
As you can probably guess, the absolute highlight of the recent showcases for me was Capcom’s, because it included the announcement of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy.
If you didn’t catch the news, the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a new collection of Ace Attorney games that bundles the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.
(For some reason, the official website includes a beautiful image of the games’ art… in the wrong play order, as seen here, but that’s probably because Spirit of Justice’s art looks best as a centerpiece.)
It will be out in early 2024 for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Even though I’ve already played all three games, I’m delighted by the news, not only because it means more people can play them, but also because I believe it’s another sign that Ace Attorney’s future is brighter than ever.
We’ve been waiting for Ace Attorney 7 for a very long time. Remember back in 2017, when rumors claimed Ace Attorney 7 was coming in 2018? That obviously didn’t happen. There hasn’t been a brand-new Ace Attorney game since 2017, when The Great Ace Attorney 2 first came out in Japan, so it’s no surprise that hopes for the series were starting to dim.
I’d started to give up hope that we’d ever even see the unlocalized entries in the series, which at the time were Investigations 2 and the two Great Ace Attorney games.
All that changed in 2021 with the release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. Capcom had decided that the two historical spin-offs (which hadn’t sold well) were worthy of being remastered, bundled, and translated for the first time. Chronicles even got a physical release on the Switch in North America, despite the last two mainline entries being digital-only. That was enough to make me believe in Ace Attorney’s future again, especially when Chronicles blasted past sales expectations (according to the leak, their sales expectations for Chronicles were 300k copies by 2025).
Yet with no sign of Ace Attorney 7 despite the leaks saying it was in development, many fans once again started to say the series was dead.
But what about now?
In the leaks that revealed The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and claimed Ace Attorney 7 was also in development, the prospect of a collection containing Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice was mentioned only tentatively, to be decided based on the sales of the other games. Many fans went so far as to say it was confirmed to not be happening due to the expenses required to translate Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice into all the languages Apollo Justice had been available in.
Well, it seems that’s not the case after all, because the Apollo Justice collection is on its way, in 7 different languages, with Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice being translated into other languages for the first time (previously, Japanese and English were the only languages for those two).
Since Capcom is willing to give Ace Attorney games new translations, I’m more optimistic than ever for Ace Attorney Investigations 2’s chances of being localized.
And between The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and the Apollo Justice Trilogy, it looks like we’re finally free from the worry that Capcom believed an Ace Attorney game would only sell if Phoenix’s name was in the title. Could we see an Ace Attorney Investigations Duology in the years ahead?
Most important of all, the biggest hurdle to a 7th mainline game was the fact that only half of the mainline series was available on current platforms. With the 3DS eShop having been shut down, the 4th, 5th, and 6th games were only available on mobile devices, and even those were unavailable for a lot of new phones.
With all 6 mainline Ace Attorney games on modern platforms, Capcom willing to go the extra step to translate entries that hadn’t been translated before, and the series seeing excellent sales (enough for them to use “from the creator of Ace Attorney” in the hopes of boosting Ghost Trick’s sales, too), I don’t see anything standing in the way of Ace Attorney 7 now.
Yes, there’s a good chance it’ll have a new director if Shu Takumi no longer wants to work on mainline Ace Attorney, since Takeshi Yamazaki left Capcom a few years ago, but there’s no reason to think Capcom couldn’t put someone else in charge – and no reason to assume the new director wouldn’t understand the series, either.
This isn’t the time for Ace Attorney doom and gloom! With The Great Ace Attorney translated and the Apollo Justice Trilogy coming next year, I say Ace Attorney optimism should be at an all-time high.
How do you feel about the current state of the Ace Attorney series and its future prospects?
A new Corpse Party game has been announced!
