Katana ZERO
Intense overall intensityWhat's in it
Fast melee combat where the katana-wielding assassin kills human enemies in one hit, with heavy pixel-art blood sprays and bodies left on the ground.
The player character is an addict injected with an experimental drug by his handler; the drug and its withdrawal are a central plot element that the character actively uses.
Dialogue between characters includes strong profanity.
The story dwells on war trauma, atrocities such as burning villages, amnesia, addiction, psychological manipulation, and recurring nightmares involving a child in danger.
Neo-noir psychological-horror tone with unsettling dream sequences, dread, and disturbing imagery.
The player works as a contract killer, carrying out paid assassinations as the central activity of the game.
A dying, drug-dependent war veteran asks the protagonist to end his life as a favor.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
Katana ZERO is a stylish 2D neo-noir action-platformer in which you play Subject Zero, an amnesiac assassin who can slow time and see the near future. Gameplay is fast, precise combat: you clear rooms of human enemies with a katana and thrown objects, killing each in a single hit while a single hit also kills you, forcing constant retries. It is bloody, with pixel-art blood spray and corpses, and its story deals with war trauma, murder-for-hire, drug addiction, and psychological breakdown, told through dialogue between missions. It is a single-player game with no online features or purchases.
How it's framed
The game presents the protagonist as a damaged, manipulated killer rather than a hero; violence is his job and skill, and the narrative frames his contracts, drug dependency, and buried war crimes as sources of guilt and unresolved trauma rather than triumph.
Details
- Developer
- Askiisoft
- Publisher
- Devolver Digital
- Released
- Apr 18, 2019
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