Based on the widely popular anime of the same name, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is all set to bring more of your favorite characters to the arena while making a few noteworthy changes that are sure to elevate an already solid experience.

With CyberConnect2 and SEGA returning to the helm, the sequel is primed to bring a frenetic, action-packed gameplay loop to the table for its players. To that end, here are a few things you need to know about the upcoming title before you pick up your copy.

1. Infinity Castle Character Pass Post-Launch Content

CyberConnect 2 is already planning to bring a ton of new post-launch content to its title with a Character Pass based on the anime’s Infinity Castle Arc on the way. While details are scant regarding what this pass contains, expect to see content from the show’s Infinity Castle Arc being front and center.

This could very well include Upper Rank Demons and perhaps a few skills for the game’s new additions to its roster of fighters. There could also be cosmetics and other goodies for you to grab once it drops later down the line.

2. The Story Continues

Hinokami Chronicles 2 picks up where the previous game left off, continuing Tanjiro’s story as he goes through the Entertainment District in search of a cure for his sister’s condition and his eventual power-up at the Swordsmith Village. The story is also set to bring the Hashira Training Arc to your screens, allowing you to relive the trials that Tanjiro faced in order to truly become a part of the Demon Slayers’ ranks.

There are a lot of exciting moments and nail-biting sequences filled with tension and horrifying encounters with demons for you to navigate. If you haven’t had the chance to catch up on the anime’s story, this could be a great way to do so!

3. The Hashira Join the Fray

Speaking of the Hashira Training Arc, the best of the best Demon Slayers are also joining the playable roster of characters in the game’s PvP mode, aside from their appearances in the main story.

Each of these elite hunters brings their own breathing techniques and a lot of raw firepower to the field for you to harness against your opponents. The Hashiras could very well be your go-to main characters, bringing skill, style, and finesse to every fight they are a part of.

4. Improved Mechanics and Faster Duels

CyberConnect2 is picking up the pace this time around, bringing new mechanics aimed at encouraging a more dynamic fighting experience. Early previews of the game suggest that its controls are a lot more responsive, while its new systems, which we’ll get to in a minute, add new layers of strategy to each battle.

Smoother dodge cancels, strategic attacking, and a lot of good balancing all around are all features that could make Hinokami Chronicles 2 even better than its predecessor in terms of its gameplay loop. That’s definitely a good thing considering how much fighting you’re going to be doing in its brilliant story.

5. New Breathing Techniques

It wouldn’t be a worthy sequel if there were no new Breathing Techniques for Tanjiro and the game to nail down. Considering its story and the addition of the Hashiras, the addition of new techniques for the Demon Slayers to master is kind of a no-brainer.

While details are scant about how these techniques are going to factor into the gameplay loop, they are certain to work well with other additions to make Hinokami Chronicles 2 a challenge to learn but very rewarding to master.

6. The Deluxe Edition Comes With a Few Goodies

Aside from the obvious benefit of Advance Access, which lets you play the game five days before its official launch, the Deluxe edition of Hinokami Chronicles 2 also nets you a few cool additions like character unlock keys, cosmetics, a set of avatars, a ton of in-game points, and a dynamic custom theme.

That’s quite the package and can set you up nicely for the official launch if you’re willing to spend that extra cash to grab it. You will need to preorder the Deluxe Edition before August 5 to be able to access all it has to offer, so head on over to your platform’s digital storefront as soon as you can. 

7. Muzan Kubitsuji Is Coming to Vs. Mode!

If you were wondering about why we hadn’t mentioned the Demon King after talking about Infinity Castle, you now have your answer. The man behind it all is making his way to Versus Mode in Hinokami Chronicles, and is sure to give even the Hajiras a tough time in the field.

With an intellect as deadly as the whips he wields in battle, along with a speed that’s almost too quick for a normal Demon Slayer to follow, it will be interesting to see how the character plays out in CyberConnect2’s effort to translate his terrifying presence into a more manageable, balanced take on the series’ main antagonist.

8. Maximize the Mayhem

Perhaps one way to take down the Demon King is to sync up with your team and unleash two of your Ultimate Abilities together. That’s a possibility in the new game, with CyberConnect2 building on the previous game’s most flashy moves by allowing two characters with compatible moves to team up and unleash an extra powerful attack to take the fight to their opponents.

Using these new attacks strategically is sure to let you snatch quite a few victories even from the jaws of defeat.

9. A New Gear System

It’s not just new Breathing Techniques and Ultimate Abilities that are new in the upcoming title. There’s also a Gear System that lets you equip up to three items to your character of choice, each of which grants a unique perk that gives them an edge in battle.

It’s a nifty little addition that could have a huge impact on how your favorite character’s abilities play out against an opponent who might be able to predict your next moves if they are familiar enough with your playstyle. Switching up your gear could shake things up, and have them on the backfoot if you manage your loadout with a bit of strategy.

10. Individual Character Mastery

If you’re the type to stick to your favorite characters when taking on a fighting game, Hinokami Chronicles 2 rewards your loyalty with a bunch of cosmetics to ensure you look your best when you take on formidable warriors or ominous demons.

We hope to see rewards that extend beyond customization, though. Perhaps a couple of new skills or techniques, once our mastery with a specific character goes high enough, could be part of the new system? We’ll just have to wait and see.

11. Train with the Hashira

In what is a pretty cool way to introduce new players to all of the game’s mechanics and offer veterans a chance to brush up on their skills, CyberConnect2 has taken the Hashiras’ presence in Hinokami Chronicles 2 beyond just the story and made them a part of a new Tournament Mode.

Here, you train with individual Hashiras, going up the ladder by achieving specific objectives that are designed to familiarize you with specific mechanics and systems. It’s the perfect way to blow off some steam while also improving your skills in the process.

12. System Requirements

If you’re playing Hinokami Chronicles 2 on PC, you might want to ensure that your system is able to run the game smoothly. CyberConnect2 recommends a minimum configuration of an Intel Core i5-3470 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200, 6 GB of RAM, a 2 GB GeForce GT 640 / 3 GB Radeon HD 7950 graphics card, 30 GB of hard drive space, and Windows 10 64-bit.

However, the recommended specs take things up a notch, requiring an Intel Core i5-4570 / Ryzen 5 1400, 8 GB RAM,  and a 2 GB GeForce GTX 760 / 4 GB Radeon RX 47030 GB alongside 30GB of space and Windows 10 64-bit.

While your mileage may vary based on your setup, these specs should give you an idea of what you need to have the game running smoothly, and perhaps let you know if you need to turn down a few settings to achieve optimum performance.

13. Keep Coming Back For More

While the story in this game could take you anywhere between 10-15 hours to beat, depending on your demon slaying skills, Hinokami Chronicles 2 is one of those titles that could have you playing it long after you’ve rolled the credits on its main campaign.

The multitude of modes on offer, along with the thrill of playing it either online or locally with friends, can make this fighter a constant presence in your library of games, and one that you keep revisiting from time to time when you feel like a bit of action-packed fun. 

And that wraps up everything you need to know before you pick up your copy of Hinokami Chronicles 2. We’re going to be diving back into the story for some fond memories of a great anime, and hope to see you there!

That extra year may have been avoidable, but it’s water under the bridge now, particularly how good the Switch port of the game really seems to be. From a content perspective, the Switch version  comes with the original game, as well as all post launch content released for it. In terms of graphics and mechanics, this is a remarkably good transition to a much weaker system, with the game looking sharp and running incredibly well. Indeed, few to no hitches really manifested for me while I was playing Demon Slayer, and the biggest complaint I would hold against it from a tech perspective would be the loading times, which feel a smidge too long – long enough to often break the excellent flow the game’s combat encounters can achieve. 

Let’s talk about those combat encounters for a bit. Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles is a 3D arena fighter. And while it’s not a game demanding frame perfect inputs and long combo memorizations of its players, the combat system here works rather well. It’s easy to grasp (made easier to understand with some of the best onboarding I’ve seen in a fighting game since… well, it’s been a long while since the last time, I’ll leave it at that), satisfying to play, and leads to some incredibly flashy and stylish moves on screen that are great to watch no matter how many times you’ve triggered them before. They look badass, plus, in adherence to their source material, look accurate to the story they’re telling as well. 

"Demon Slayer has a remarkably full fledged single player component, featuring a story mode that faithfully follows the source material, spread across multiple chapters taking you through all the major plot beats."

And yes, there IS a story here, and it’s not a story mode like you might expect from most fighters. Demon Slayer has a remarkably full fledged single player component, featuring a story mode that faithfully follows the source material, spread across multiple chapters taking you through all the major plot beats, and some well designed encounters that all do a great job at slowly helping new players come to grips with how the game’s mechanics work. By the time you’re done with the not inextensive story mode, you’re more than capable of holding your own in the battle modes. 

Those battle modes, which are unlocked after you finish the story mode’s tutorials, are pretty much like in any other fighter – you pick your characters (singular if you’re picking demons), pick your arena, and then duke it out. The combat system is fun enough to support a purely fighting focused mode like this, though obviously Demon Slayer doesn’t have the depth other dedicated fighting games may have. Support for local and online multiplayer also keeps these battles fun and engaging – long after you’ve exhausted the fun you can get from repeating battles against the CPU ad nauseum, simply being able to play against another human opponent can help extend the time you’ll spend with the game. 

Not that fans of the series will need any more incentives to really spend more time with the game because Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles is in many ways a love letter to the source material, packed with so many nods, references, and collectibles evoking the anime and manga that fans are sure to find it a joy to engage with. The story mode will last you 8-10 hours, depending on how much you choose to explore its world and environments, and you’ll keep returning to it, as well as other modes and content in the game, to unlock more points that you can then use to unlock fighters, arenas, profile pictures, music, quotes, taunts, and more for the battles. There’s a LOT to go through here – if you like Demon Slayer, enough that you’ll probably want to earmark a fair bit of time to go through it all properly. 

"The world of Demon Slayer is fascinating, and this game does it justice enough that I can imagine it intriguing even those who have had no prior engagement with the IP."

And what about if you’re not a fan? That’s where things get dicey. Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles is legitimately fun and well designed on its own merits, with a lot of content too, but it can be really tough to get into if you don’t have background knowledge from the anime or manga. While ostensibly this game is covering the same story beats, they do not stand alone, and almost seem to be adapted by the game with the expectation that the player has full context from elsewhere to supplement them. Put simply, if you’re a newcomer to Demon Slayer, Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles can sort of feel like being thrown into the deep end of the pool and being told to figure it out yourself. While the story does start to rely on background knowledge less as it develops its stakes, on the whole I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone as their first entry to the franchise. 

The one thing I can say is that the world of Demon Slayer is fascinating, and this game does it justice enough that I can imagine it intriguing even those who have had no prior engagement with the IP. But honestly I would say that’s more to the series’ credit than it is to the game’s. 

If you’re not a fan, and do end up with this game anyhow, it’s still a fun time. The brawling combat is great, the exploration is mostly linear but rewarding, the world depicted in the game is intriguing and begs more familiarity, the voice acting, music, and graphics are all great, and there’s a whole lot of content to chew through to boot. And if you ARE a fan? It’s hard to imagine a better video game adaptation of the beloved property than Demon Slayer, Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles ends up being. Hopefully this heralds the start of many more high quality games based on the IP to come. 

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.