Developer Too Kyo Games, Grounding Inc 

Publisher NIS America 

Format iOS, Switch (tested) 

Release Out now

Talk about a cliffhanger: when World’s End Club released on Apple Arcade last September it was missing its final two hours, with players told to wait for the Switch release to discover if the cast of charismatic sprogs would escape a dire fate. As gimmicks go, placing a story’s conclusion in a separate copy of the game seems cynical (though an ending update for iOS has now been released), but was maybe less surprising to followers of scenario writer Kotaro Uchikoshi. His visual novels, notably the Zero Escape series, often hinge on fakeouts and false endings, with stories only fully emerging after multiple trips through his narrative flowcharts have revealed facts in one branch required to survive in another. A thrilling delivery method for twists and turns, if perhaps not an ideal business model.

World’s End Club follows the template, albeit simplified for a younger audience; a gateway drug to the head-spinning chronologies of Uchikoshi’s earlier work. Stranded during a school trip, and with the rest of humanity vanished, the titular rabble embark on a hike from Kagoshima to Tokyo. Regular forks in the road cause squabbling factions of the group to face distinct obstacles and discover different pieces of the puzzle explaining why the class is in this predicament. Although less ambitious than a sprawling Zero Escape, the smattering of binary choices still reminds us of that structure’s magic; how parallel timelines nod at enticing goings-on you’ll later witness firsthand, and the way paths you do take constantly recontextualise the behaviour of a group bulging with hidden traumas.