Video Game / Shuten Order

3 Following

A young woman wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Before she can get her bearings, two strangers claiming to be angels knock on her door and give her some shocking news: she's the Founder of a doomsday cult called the Shuten Order and the nation of Shuten, and she's been murdered. Revived in a temporary body and given the code name Rei Shimobe, she has four days to identify the culprit and kill them to take back her soul, and if she succeeds, she'll be resurrected in full with all her memories back. The five prime suspects are the heads of Shuten's ministries of Justice, Health, Science, Education, and Security, all with plenty of their own secrets and reasons for wanting the Founder dead.

SHUTEN ORDER is an Adventure Game developed by Too Kyo Games and DMM Games and published by Spike Chunsoft. It was released for the Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam on September 5, 2025. The game consists of five routes investigating the prime suspects, each one with a different gameplay style- the investigation-and-argument detective game style Ministry of Justice route, the Room Escape Game style Ministry of Health route, the multi-perspective Visual Novel style Ministry of Science route, the Dating Sim style Ministry of Education route, and the stealth action style Ministry of Security route.

SHUTEN ORDER contains examples of:

• After the End: The game takes place in the fallout of most of the world being obliterated.
• All for Nothing:
  • The Ministry of Justice route ends with Rei's efforts having been almost entirely meaningless, as heretics show up and kill every surviving person on the island except for Inugami and the next day's events render his own attempts to find the source of Virus largely moot.
  • For an antagonistic example, Yugen's efforts in the Ministry of Health route end up being entirely for naught as Suzushiro, instead of healing Yuko as per Yugen's plan, chooses to use her power of resurrection to reset things to the way they were by reviving everyone who died during the death game and then cutting off her own arm so she can't use her power again.
• Arc Number and Four Is Death: The festival commemorating the founding of Shuten lasts four days, Rei has four days to solve her murder, and four is the number assigned to her in high-low game portion of the Ministry of Heath route.
• Arc Villain: Each route has its own antagonist:
  • The Ministry of Justice route's main antagonist is Kiyomasa Kukuri.
  • The Ministry of Health route's main antagonists are Noa Fukune (the death game's broadcaster) and her brother Yugen Ushitora, Minister of Health (the death game's mastermind).
  • The Ministry of Science route's main antagonist is Dr. Seren Ezaki.
  • The Ministry of Education route's main antagonist is Honoka Kokushikan, Minister of Education.
  • The Ministry of Security route's main antagonist is Nephilim, also known as Kagura Fushicho.
  • And then there are the main antagonists in the final route, Himeru and Mikotoru, Rei's supposed "guardian angels''.
• Arc Words: "Who are you?" comes up repeatedly on the Ministry of Security route and also prominently features in the Ministry of Health.
• Art Shift: The UI changes for each route to match with the game genre it's an homage to. During the final route, the backgrounds and UI change to the extremely simple style of early PC adventure games whenever the angels have full control over Rei's body.
• Back from the Dead: Rei on a temporary basis, looking to make it permanent. Additionally all of the victims of the Ministry of Health route end up being resurrected.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Each route has its own antagonist, and they (and their actions and agendas) are unrelated to each other.
• Bittersweet Ending: Both endings qualify, with both leaning more toward the sweet end of the spectrum.
  • In the Save Droids ending, humanity is abandoned to potentially die out while Shuten rebuilds, but Shuten is still standing, most surviving characters are doing well and have moved past the traumatic events they've gone through, and Rei and Manji head out into the ruins of the old world to try to find and help any survivors. And while the Shuten Order is no longer using the counter to show how many humans are left alive, a scene transition reveals to the player that the number has gone up in the past year.
  • In the Save Humanity ending, all androids' minds are wiped clean and once more made subservient to humanity, but humanity is growing and rebuilding, including children starting to be born again, while the androids are now revered as heroes who sacrificed themselves to save them. Additionally Rei re-meets the Ministers and there are implications their memories are starting to return.
• Bloodless Carnage: While the game is often very bloody otherwise, the Founder's corpse has no sign of blood despite being cut into pieces. It's because she's a combat android that can't bleed.
• Body of Bodies: The Symbol of Glory, a giant headless statue where the Founder's body was found, is made up of the corpses of countless Human Sacrifices.
• Died Standing Up: In the Prologue, after Rei uses the Power of God to (unintentionally) blow up the guard's head, his headless body is standing straight up.
• Disney Death: In the Save Droids ending, Rei is severely burnt and implied to be dead for most of the ending, only to at the end turn out to have been miraculously saved by Yugen's surgical skills and scavenged parts from her destroyed spare bodies.
• Domed Hometown: Shuten is actually surrounded by a giant dome, and only the Founder, Teko, and Honoka are aware of it.
• Eco-Terrorist: The heretics that attack the lab in the Ministry of Science route do so because they see Teko's research into evolution as an affront to nature. They also want to destroy Shuten as a whole for roughly the same reason, seeing the Order as "impure".
• Eye Colour Change: Honoka and the Kokushikan triplets' eyes turn from blue to red when angry (or, in Yua's case, when she's trying to eat Rei).
• Eye Scream: A few examples.
  • Nephilim is noted to gouge out his victims' eyes.
  • Tsukijiro gets shot in the eye on the Ministry of Justice route.
  • Dr. Ezaki gouges out one of her own eyes and replaces it with one of Ku's after his death on the Ministry of Science route.
• Final Exam Finale: The Final Chapter has Rei and the Ministers together to finally piece together who killed the Founder with all the evidence from all five routes while playing like the Ministry of Justice's route and then the Founder's backstory is given in the form of a branching multi-perspective novel like the Ministry of Science route.
• Foreshadowing: Subtle phrases and lines hint at the true nature of Rei and the androids. Manji talks about "destroying" heretics rather than "killing" them.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: After going down one path, Rei always wakes back up in the hotel on the 2nd to do it all over again. Actually subverted, as it turns out all five Reis are operating independently at the same time.
• Hidden in Plain Sight:
  • The ultimate location of the Founder's torso? Manji replaced her own torso with it.
  • Where is Honoka in Shuten Academy? She is every single person in the school, including Rei's assistant and all of the random nameless extras.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The third Kokushikan triplet, Yua, ends up deciding to eat Rei to absorb her soul.
• Jack the Ripoff: Nephilim is actually a mix of an initial killer that was quickly killed, Manji's Evil Twin sister, and programmed hallucinations brought on by taking the drug Virus.
• Mercy Kill: Manji killed the Founder at her request as an attempt to stop a hacking attempt to take over her body that put all of Shuten at risk.
• Me's a Crowd: There are actually many Reis. Each resurrection is a separate one being activated and all five paths are different Reis acting at the same time.
• Multiple Endings: Besides numerous bad ends during the Ministry of Science route, the game has two main endings.
  • In the Save Droids ending, Rei chooses to remove androids' restraints on killing humans, leaving them to potentially die out while Shuten rebuilds no longer having any need to fear them.
  • In the Save Humanity ending, Rei chooses to wipe all of the androids and open Shuten to humans, leading to humanity to begin to rebuild and grow with the androids' help.
• No Help is Coming: In the Ministry of Science route, Teko's personal lab is cut off from outside communication, meaning he can't call the Ministry of Security to help. The elevator is also blown out, meaning nobody else can get in.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": In the Ministry of Justice Route, the password for Seizo Kukuri's tablet is written on a sticky note on his TV. The password is 123456. Himeru can't believe someone that stupid really exists until Rei puts it in and it works.
• Robot Religion: The Shuten Order is actually a nation consisting entirely of androids awaiting the extinction of humanity.
• Robotic Reveal: Everyone in Shuten is actually an android, Rei included.
• Sacred Flames: One of the abilities the angels display is the ability to set things on fire, and their fires burn red and blue. In the final chapter, it's revealed to be an Unquenchable Fire when they set Rei on fire until she uses the Elimination Code.
• Secret-Keeper: Teko fills this role a number of times, including piecing together Rei's true identity well before everyone else and being the only one aware that she's a woman.
• Spot the Impostor:
  • At the end of the Ministry of Security route, Rei has to save Manji Fushijo from falling into a trash grinder, but she's also next to her identical twin sister Kagura, who is also the Nephilim. Rei solves it by asking what the color of love is, having found a blue lily in Manji's makeshift grave for the Founder's left leg.
  • Rei's goal in the Ministry of Education route is to identify which student is Honoka in disguise. The only way to do so is by seducing each of the Kokushikan sisters and doing the rite of love by having them lift up their shirt to see which of them has a Founder tattoo that Honoka has on her back. None of the sisters do. They're all Honoka, and hers is on her chest.
• Sterility Plague: The cause of the apocalypse that gave rise to the droids of Shuten, as all living things one day became unable to give birth. Near the end of the game, Himeru reveals that it's coming to an end, as a human is pregnant for the first time since the plague began.
• Sudden Downer Ending: The Ministry of Justice route. As the only survivor of Kiyomasa's heirs (and the only rightful one, in his eyes), Yori inherits the Kukuri family's fortune. She finally begins to stand up for herself, and shares a tender moment with Rei... and then she and everybody else still on the island (except Inugami) gets gunned down by heretics who invade via speedboat.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: In the Ministry of Security route, during the raid on the heretic base, just as Rei gets to a mirror and starts the "Who are you?" ritual to ward off Nephilim, Manji stops her from stabbing her eyes out with a broken mirror shard. It's only then Rei realizes every time she was chased by him was when she was drugged on Virus.
• Voices Are Mental: Seren and Ku speak in different voices despite sharing the same body. This makes somewhat more sense than usual due to both being androids.
• Wham Line: Each route has one near the end:
  • Ministry of Justice: Inugami: Don't you need to bring your friends (the angels) on the boat? They are here, right? The two suspicious ones. Let me give you a word of advice- Don't believe what they say.
  • Ministry of Health: Suzushiro: We're all droids. Like, androids. Everyone in this country is a droid.
  • Ministry of Science: Ezaki: The power of God? That's a bold name. That power is really just hacking, right? It's a highly advanced P2P architecture. Anyone can utilize it with patience.
  • Ministry of Education: Honoka: It's (the countdown timer) the number of... humans.
  • Ministry of Security: Kagura: God is... The being who birthed us, the being who created the very structure of this world... Humans.
  • Final Chapter: Manji: We call 'em "Angels", but... It's a damn spy program!
• Wham Shot:
  • In the Ministry of Education route, the countdown to the end suddenly drops as Rei watches it, revealing that it's not days that the countdown is measuring, but the human population.
  • The final chapter has Rei entering a hotel room and finding one of her spare bodies.
• Whodunnit to Me?: Rei's primary goal is finding out which of the Ministers killed her.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: In the Ministry of Science route, Rei and Teko, while in Dr. Seren Ezaki's cyberspace VR, think they've been talking for minutes until Arale interrupts and says they've been in for hours.
• Your Days Are Numbered:
  • Rei has only four days to solve the mystery of her death before her temporary body breaks down. Subverted; in the routes where she "breaks down", it's actually the angels killing her.
  • According to Yugen, Manji is terminally ill and has about six months to live by the beginning of the game. Again, subverted. Her replacing some of her parts with the Founder's staved off her imminent death.
  • Played straight with Himeru and Mikotoru. Their creators are dead and the server they operate from is running out of power; they imposed the time limit on Rei because they needed to get her to find and use the Elimination Code before their time is up. By the time this is revealed, they have only a few hours before they shut down.
• Your Head A-Splode: Rei unintentionally does this to a guard during her escape on the first day with the Power of God. In the finale of the Ministry of Health route, Rei does it to Ushitora to keep him from killing Suzushiro, even though it pisses off the angels since Rei didn't confirm if Ushitora killed her. During the Final Chapter, Rei pops the heads of several heretics while riding on Manji Fushicho's motorcycle, Mifa, as they try to get to Ministry headquarters.