Developed by Arc System Works and Unite Plus, Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow is a new “Tactical Timeline RPG.” Surrounding the release of Qliphah has been the negative reception towards its truncated story and experimental battle system, a discourse that was perhaps foretold by the game’s initial previews. On July 14th, RPG Site published an article on the game titled, “Sometimes a game just didn’t need a demo at a convention, and Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow was one of them.” James Galizio, the author, passes no actual judgement on Qliphah, but rather explains that the demo on hand did little to explain the game’s tactical timeline battle system.1 Subsequently, on September 23rd, Qliphah released worldwide to negative reviews.When I first posted about the game on September 26, its Steam reviews were at “Mostly Negative.” As of this writing, the review score has improved to “Mixed,” and the review page itself has transformed into something of a warfront with later reviewers arriving to praise Qliphah for its novel approach.
To be clear, Qliphah is merely a blip within contemporary games discourse. Sold at a budget price of $24.99, Arc System Works opted for a quiet release, resulting in many not even knowing the game exists. Yet, do these arguments surrounding the game’s reception also not speak towards several broader issues within games culture? The affordability of games, the homogenization of the games industry, and of course, the perception and reception of the JRPG. For Qliphah’s director, Satoshi Hirayae, none of this is unfamiliar. Hirayae’s previous efforts included Sword Art Online: Last Recollection (Aquiria, 2023) and Crymachina (Furyu, 2023), the latter title having been successful in achieving a cult reception. In an interview with Behind the Manga, Hirayae spoke on his previous experiences in working on these aforementioned games and expressed that:
For our current project, that experience helped us figure out how to strip away non-essentials and sharpen the core gameplay—delivering the same depth in a simpler, more exhilarating way. Many of my past titles featured complex mechanics tailored for hardcore gamers, which could sometimes feel a bit overwhelming for a broader audience. With this game, I believe we’ve made those elements far more accessible, intuitive, and fun for everyone.2
Qliphah is indeed stripped back but if the game is intuitive, it is perhaps only true for the hardcore audience—the players willing to understand the context of the game’s production, who do not mind frustration, and who are fans of the weird and wonderful.
Qliphah takes place in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo which has been brought to near-ruin by an event known as the “Collapse.” Parts of the city have become warped, giving way to strange creatures who attack the citizenry. Simultaneously, a drug called “tiny true” has also been making the rounds. In order to keep the peace, the “Public Anomaly Squad,” an organization of officers policing the supernatural, send in their agent Rena Hizuki to investigate. Rena encounters Soma Hoshigami, a delivery boy caught in the crossfires of a battle who subsequently finds himself transformed into a hybrid human/supernatural being, much like Rena herself. As a potential threat to humanity, Soma is forcibly initiated into the Public Anomaly Squad and becomes Rena’s new partner. Together, the two set out to investigate the mystery behind tiny true.
Qliphah’s story is told through the format of visual novels and adventure games, a maneuver which subtly hides the game’s admittedly lower budget, but one that nevertheless works within the context of the game’s narrative. Each chapter presents a case that must be solved, a process that is rather simple. Players will navigate a map of Tokyo where they can visit specific locations. This is typically followed by a short scene and a combat encounter. Beyond this, Qliphah offers two other modes of interacting with the game’s world. The first is the ‘evidence board.” While at first spare in appearance, by the end of the game, the evidence board becomes a sprawling mess of photographs and documents. It is here that players can learn about the intricacies of each case and the larger world.
Alongside the evidence board, Qliphah also allows players to browse social media and so it can be said that there are two parallel narratives simultaneously unfolding. The first is that of the Public Anomaly Squad whose resources allows them to uncover histories which have otherwise been hidden. The second is that of the public themselves who use SNS as an act of sousveillance. We may thereby understand that the truth is out there but ascertaining that truth is much more difficult. Reading through the social media feed, players will get the sense that events surrounding tiny true and anomalies are being covered up under the guise of public safety. Some users seem to only care about getting high; others are worried about family members who have gone missing or have begun behaving erratically; and then there are those who shut their eyes from it all. What these people all have in common is that they live in a world that has been laid low, making it impossible to live what Adorno called a “good life.” In this regard, it is difficult to play Qliphah and not recognize it as a product of our own “post-truth” world. In other words, here is a contemporary game reflective of the shindenki movement!
In battle, players will simultaneously control both Rena and Soma who can each equip up to six active skills (attacks, buffs, and debuffs) which are split across two swappable hotbars, and four passive skills. Players can also actively switch between Rena and Soma—the primary character is always controlled with the face buttons while the secondary character is relegated to the directional pad. As for the actual battle system, every action taken is represented by a bar which moves on a timeline. Portions of the bar are color-coded. What ultimately matters here are the colors of attacks which are red, blue, and yellow. When an action is taken, its bar appears on the timeline located in the center of the screen where it begins to whittle down. An opponent’s attack will appear at the top of the timeline whereas Rena and Soma’s will appear at the bottom. If an attack from either Rena or Soma overlaps an opponent’s and the attacks match colors, players will trigger a counter, sending enemies airborne. Airborne enemies can then be juggled and once brought down can be hit with a “pursuit” technique for extra damage.
Enemies also have a “down” gauge” that is typically depleted by countering. If players are successful in breaking this gauge, enemies are temporarily stunned and can be hit with the special “Arcanum Awakening” technique. To be clear, Qliphah‘s combat is real-time. Furthermore, there is no “free” movement. Rena and Soma can only move through the use of dodge techniques and attacks. Perhaps it is the combination of all these elements that makes Qliphah confusing to newcomers. First, the game heavily disincentives turtling. Both Rena and Soma have a “rush” counter which builds as the two attack. Rush functions as a damage multiplier and so the more Rena and Soma attack, the more damage they do. Second, while the game allows players to freeze time in order to strategize their next maneuver, should players take no action at all, the game will drastically slow down until an action is chosen.
Qliphah wants players to constantly be on the attack and to counter as much as possible. Completing combat rewards a ranking and players are judged for how quickly they completed an encounter, how many counters they performed, their total damage, and their rush count. In my experience, the amount of counters performed have an overwhelming influence on the resulting score. In one case, completing an encounter in under a minute but with zero counters resulted in only receiving a B. Within the game’s structure, the logic here makes sense. Attempting to ignore the counter system results in severely drawing out combat and thus Qliphah cannot be approached as just any other action game. Hirayae has previously cited Tokyo Ghoul (Sui Ishida, 2011 – 2014) and Jujutsu Kaisen (Gege Akutami, 2018 – 2024) as influences,3 and at its best, Qliphah‘s flow of combat is certainly reminiscent of both works. There is an exhilarating feeling in being able to successfully rush an enemy down all the while countering and dodging every attack.
The character customization offers a deeper level of strategic engagement. The initial attack skills given to Rena and Soma are quite easy to counter opponents with. The colored portions of these attacks are at the start of the gauge making timing vastly easier. In contrast, later attacks offer increased damage and additional effects but have gauges which are only colored much later in their length. If using these attacks, players will need to properly gauge when their own colors will overlap with the opponent’s. For example, perhaps when using the default skills, it is only necessary to wait 3 ~ 4 seconds to attack in order for the colors to overlap. However, these other attacks in question may require having to wait 1 ~ 2 seconds instead or even being used further in advance. While there are only a handful of enemies in the game, given that each enemy has at least three different attacks, players will still need to master how to counter each one. Character builds can further complicate this, such as using skills which raise attack speed and thus radically alter the timing of countering.
Playing on dread—the game’s version of hard mode—reveals the further intricacies of the combat. If these systems sound easy to understand in theory, then developing a grasp in practice is much more difficult. Countering one enemy is easy enough. Countering three enemies simultaneously becomes a different matter altogether. The game only shows the timeline for whichever enemy is currently targeted, but enemy attacks are also represented by a shrinking set of circles. In fact, in exchange for an increased cooldown rate, the timeline can be altogether turned off, forcing players to rely on an entirely different set of visual cues. In handling multiple enemies, countering is absolutely required as it seems that both Rena and Soma are not only immune while countering but also when performing special techniques, allowing them to become invulnerable while other enemies continue attacking. It becomes prudent to not only counter the targeted enemy but to also dodge every attack. Why stop there? Since the game gives visual cues for every enemy attack, it is entirely possible to counter one enemy, quickly switch targets, and counter the next. Paired with a skill that turns single target attacks into an area-of-effect, regular encounters can be made quick work of.
Perhaps the frustration towards Qliphah results from how alien it appears to be. The game does not play like anything on the market and that includes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive, 2025) or the glut of titles that have taken inspiration from the Souls franchise. The best comparison to be made is that the game’s combat is reminiscent of Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix, 2009) and SaGa Emerald Beyond (Square Enix, 2024). Like XIII, enemies need to be staggered and juggled. This in itself can be traced back to earlier titles like Valkyrie Profile (tri-Ace, 1999) which pushed on the action elements introduced by the likes of Super Mario RPG (Square, 1996). In the case of Valkyrie Profile, rather than solely controlling a single character at a time, players simultaneously controlled multiple characters whose attacks could be strung together. Final Fantasy XIII hid these elements of action games beneath its active-time battle system, but juggling and to a lesser extent, cancelling, are all there. As for Emerald Beyond, attacks are similarly placed on a timeline which can be manipulated for an advantage which itself recalls Grandia (Game Arts, 1997) and Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny (Gust Co. Ltd., 2005). The argument here is not that a player can only appreciate Qliphah after having done the homework of playing these earlier games, but rather that these systems are not as strange as they are made out to be. Qliphah is an action game borrowing the strategic aspects of RPGs that perhaps pretends to instead be a strategic RPG borrowing the spectacular elements of action games. What makes Qliphah bold is not strictly its combination of genres but how those genres are combined in ways that go beyond merely adding numbers and gauges to an action game. Playing on dread difficulty, the game thus demands that players become intimate with its systems, along the way discovering what works and what does not. Not only does it challenge our preconceived notions of the genre but above all, it remains a rewarding experience.
NOTES
- James Galizio, “Sometimes a game just didn’t need a demo at a convention, and Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow was one of them,” RPG Site, July 14, 2026. https://www.rpgsite.net/preview/20910-sometimes-game-just-didnt-need-demo-at-convention-qliphah-in-providences-shadow-was-one-them ↩︎
- Winter Venom, “Interviewing Game Designer Satoshi Hirayae,” Behind the Manga, August 3, 2026. https://www.behindthemanga.com/post/interviewing-game-designer-satoshi-hirayae ↩︎
- Jordan McClain, “Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow Interview,” RPGamer, July 8, 2026 .https://rpgamer.com/2026/07/qliphah-in-providences-shadow-interview/ ↩︎