Death end re;Quest: Code Z Revolves Around Bad Endings

The notable thing about the Death end re;Quest series of games is how easy it is to meet bad ends. Gruesomely. Repeatedly. Even if you think you’re maybe doing the right thing. It’s gory, to be certain, though it can make actually getting a character ending or the true one even more satisfying. Death end re;Quest: Code Z is a spin-off roguelike that… well, falters along the way. (It’s fine, I’d say it is not the best roguelike or representation of this series.) What I will say though is that it absolutely takes advantage of the Death End mechanic from the series and nature of the genre to attempt to do something different with the genre, though the violent nature and reliance on knowledge of the series and its characters both might dissuade many from playing.

So ideally, you’d think maybe Death end re;Quest: Code Z would be more accessible since it involves parallel universes, however it does still include the sorts of references and asides that might make for some barriers. Sayaka Hiwatari is a debugger on the game End to Odyssey with Shina Ninomiya, and she encounters something insidious while on the job. This means needing to head into the Strain Area dungeon and save or fight folks like Shina, Yurisa Yamamura, and Lucil Filarete. So you must stay alive and sane while searching for them, then getting out together while figuring out what Arata Mizunashi, another familiar face, is after.

Except since this is both Death end re;Quest, getting those bad endings in Death end re;Quest: Code Z is something we want to get, rather than avoid like we would in most roguelikes. This is because while on any difficulty other than Normal you lose what’s in your inventory and your levels, dying ends up being a way to make progress. Each death gets you a skill point if it is the first time you died that way. Which means keeping Sayaka’s sanity high enough to not affect her health and instead try and have an enemy, trap, or boss kill her is to your benefit. It’s an interesting concept, and perhaps one of the few things I found really unique about this spin-off.

It also feels like the Death Ends in Death end re;Quest: Code Z are designed to be a selling point due to the execution. These are handled in the same way as the mainline installments. So there will be unique descriptions explaining what happened. It becomes a “moment.” Someone who really loves the series for that reason might even find themselves searching for Death Ends repeatedly for completionist purposes. 

While I wish Death end re;Quest: Code Z was more fun to play or perhaps more welcoming to newcomers, I do appreciate the way it embraces and uses the Death End bad endings mechanic. This is a series in which it could be quite easy for characters to die. Dying happens a lot in roguelikes. Attempting to make a death in a roguelike less painful by tying it to the unique endings and character growth makes sense. The execution isn’t the best, but I can see what Compile Heart and Idea Factory were trying. 

Death end re;Quest: Code Z is available for the PS4 and PS5, and it will come to the PC via Steam later in 2025. 

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