Master Detective Archives: Rain Code

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is a fantasy-mystery adventure game taking place across six chapters. Players control Yuma Kokohead, an amnesiac detective who solves incidents with the help of Shinigami. Gameplay alternates between Kanai Ward in the real world, where the story unfolds, and the Mystery Labyrinth, a dungeon formed from the mysteries surrounding a case.

During each chapter, the player explores the Kanai Ward area, where they can either progress the main story or partake in optional side quests known as Requests. By interacting with objects, speaking with characters, and completing various tasks, players earn Detective Points that increase Yuma's skill level and rewards Skill Points. Skill Points can be used to unlock various abilities that can be used in the Mystery Labyrinth. Additionally, the player can find statues of Shinigami, which can unlock optional dialogues with side characters.

Detective trainee Yuma Kokohead awakens at a train station, learning that he is to board the Amaterasu Express, a self-driving passenger train en route to Kanai Ward on an assignment. Due to his amnesia, Yuma is suspected as an impostor among the Master Detectives on board, who are members of the World Detective Organization (WDO). Encouraged to rest by detective Zilch Alexander, Yuma is knocked out in the bathroom, and reawakens to meet Shinigami, a god of death visible only to him due to a pact trading his memories for her aid. Yuma discovers the other detectives dead and is framed by Amaterasu Corporation’s Peacekeepers.

Before being arrested, Shinigami pulls Yuma into a Mystery Labyrinth, an alternate dimension formed by the real-world mysteries, which they traverse to solve. There, Yuma and Shinigami discover the true killer to be a hitman impersonating Zilch hired to sabotage the Detectives' journey. This fails to prove Yuma's innocence, as solving the case kills the true culprit. Yuma is saved from the Peacekeepers by Yakou Furio, head of the local WDO agency, who acquits him and explains that Kanai Ward is an isolated, perpetually rainy city ruled by Amaterasu Corporation.

Rain Code was co-developed by Spike Chunsoft and Too Kyo Games, a company formed in 2017 by ex-employees of Spike Chunsoft. It was written by Kazutaka Kodaka and Takekuni Kitayama, and features music by Masafumi Takada, and character designs by Rui Komatsuzaki and Shimadoriru; several key staff members previously worked on Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa series.

Kodaka began the planning for the game in 2016 while he was still working at Spike Chunsoft. It was designed to be different from Danganronpa, with a dark fantasy setting influenced by the work of filmmaker Tim Burton, and uses 3D models throughout as opposed to Danganronpa's blend of 3D environments and 2D characters, although still features a similar psycho-pop aesthetic with neon colors. It was developed using the Unreal Engine.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code was the bestselling retail game during its first week of release in Japan, with 55,339 copies being physical. By the end of July, the game had sold over 300,000 copies worldwide.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 69% of critics.