World End Syndrome

• Title — World End Syndrome • Developer — Toybox Games • Publisher — Arc System Works, PQube (Europe) • Writer — Tomio Kanazawa • Artist — Yuki Kato • Genre — Visual novel • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4

The game largely plays as a traditional visual novel, with most of the game consisting of reading text and selecting different dialogue choices that divert the path of the story. The game features a similar game structure to modern Persona video games, where progression is tied to a calendar system, where players may choose to move to different locations see various events across different days and times of day including morning, afternoon, and evening.

The story takes place in the small fictional Japanese town of Mihate. The game follows an unnamed male high school student who moves to the town and joins his school's "Mystery Club". In it, he investigates the urban legend of the "Yomibito", an event occurring every 100 years where corpses rise from the dead and rampage across the land. Investigation is spurred upon the realization that it has been 100 years since the supposedly last occurrence, and the unexplained recent deaths of students of the school. The game delves into a number of different genre as the story unfolds, including horror, mystery, romance, and "slice of life".

The game's Japanese release was initially scheduled for April 2018, before being delayed into mid-2018. The game was later translated into English and released in North America on May 2, 2019, and Europe on June 14, 2019. All regions of the game were released on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 video game consoles. The game was developed by Toybox Games, and outside of Europe, where it was published by PQube, the game was published by Arc System Works, publisher of the BlazBlue and Xblaze video games. World End Syndrome features the art and character designer from the two titles, from artist Yuki Kato. The game's scenario was written by Tomio Kanazawa, who had previously produced Deadly Premonition. Toybox and Arc System Works had previously collaborated on the title Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters.

In December 2019, in a segment where Japanese developer hint about what they will be working on in the upcoming year, Toybox Games developer Tomio Kanazawa announced that the title would receive a sequel titled World End Phenomenon. However, as of 2025, no further developments have been announced regarding the title.