Scarlet Nexus arrived on June 25, 2021, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Bandai Namco Studios and Tose developed it. Bandai Namco Entertainment published it. It is an action role-playing game, played from a third-person view, and it asks you to pick a side before you understand what the sides are.
That choice is Yuito Sumeragi or Kasane Randall, two new recruits to the Other Suppression Force. Both wield psychokinesis. Both see the same war from different angles. The game does not tell you which recruit to take first, and it does not tell you that the answer changes what you know and when you know it.
Trailer, via IGN.
Two Recruits, One Extinction Belt
The setting is a near-future alternate reality. Humanity built its technology and its society on substances found in the human brain, and those substances grant extrasensory powers. People without ESP are a minority, and the psychic interface of most telecommunications puts them at a disadvantage. That is the world Scarlet Nexus hands you, and it is a good one.
The threat is the Others: mindless mutants made from humans exposed to the matter of the Extinction Belt orbiting Earth. They descend, and they devour human brains. Conventional attack methods do not work well against them. That is why the OSF exists. It scouts the psionically gifted, recruits them, and sends them out as humanity’s last line of defense.
Yuito wants to become an elite psionic like the one who saved him as a child. He has psycho-kinesis. Kasane has psychokinesis too. The city they defend is New Himuka. The story moves through both of them, and the game’s structure means you are always missing half of it.
Swords, Debris, and the Struggle Arms System
Combat is where Scarlet Nexus earns its place. Yuito and Kasane carry short-range weapons, swords among them, but the sword is not the point. Psychokinesis is. You hurl objects and debris at hostile enemies, and the game wants you to keep doing it.
The protagonist’s powers upgrade through the “brain map,” which is the skill tree. Party members join as the story progresses, and each companion has unique combat abilities. You borrow those abilities temporarily through an ability called “brain link,” powered by the Struggle Arms System, or SAS. That system is the spine of every fight. You are not building one character. You are building a rotating set of borrowed powers and timing them.
The side missions are the weak spot. They exist, they are there to be done, and they do not carry the weight the combat does. That is the trade the game makes.
Kasane, Naomi, and the Kunad Gate
The story turns on Kasane’s sister Naomi. During a mission, Naomi takes a bullet meant for Kasane. The bullet metamorphizes her into an Other. That reveals the ultimate origins of all Others, and it is the moment the game stops being a monster-of-the-week story.
Agents of Seiran, a rival settlement to New Himuka, then transport Naomi away. Much later, Kasane and Yuito accidentally create the Kunad Gate with their powers, an object akin to a black hole. Kasane is propelled into the future, alone.
There, Yuito’s future self explains the stakes. The more Yuito uses his powers, the more the Kunad Gate will envelop the world in the present and doom humanity. The only way to stop it is to kill him. He also explains that they both have the special Red Strings, the gravikinetic power that allows time travel, which Yuito and Kasane have until now misread as simple telekinesis.
After Kasane returns to the present, the platoons split. Yuito’s platoon finds that New Himuka has been running numerous inhumane experiments to create an army of Others, and wants to destroy the Extinction Belt. Kasane’s platoon joins Seiran. They learn Seiran is experimenting on Others and humans too, and is searching for a way to do something with that work. Both settlements are dirty. Neither is the good one.
A Tale Told Twice
The two-protagonist structure is the most interesting thing Scarlet Nexus attempts, and it is also the thing most likely to frustrate. Here is how the two paths sit against each other.
| Element | Yuito Sumeragi | Kasane Randall |
|---|---|---|
| Role | New OSF recruit | New OSF recruit |
| Core power | Psycho-kinesis | Psychokinesis |
| Goal | Become an elite psionic like the one who saved him | Not stated in the source |
| Mid-game turn | His platoon discovers New Himuka’s experiments and wants to destroy the Extinction Belt | Her platoon joins Seiran and learns it is experimenting on Others and humans |
| Late-game stake | His future self says killing him is the only way to stop the Kunad Gate | She is propelled into the future, where Yuito’s future self explains the Kunad Gate stakes to her |
The table is not a ranking. It is the argument for playing both. One route leaves you with half the plot and half the context, and the game knows it.
Release and Reception Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| June 25, 2021 | Scarlet Nexus releases for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S |
| April 2022 | The game has sold 1 million units |
| — | IGDB critic aggregate score: 8.1/10 across 10 outlets |
That 8.1 is the number this review stands behind. It is also the number the aggregate put up.
The Verdict on New Himuka
Scarlet Nexus is a good game with a structural gamble at its center, and the gamble mostly pays. The combat is the reason to stay. Brain link and the SAS turn every encounter into a small negotiation about whose power you need right now, and the brain map gives that negotiation room to grow. Hurl a piece of the city at something that wants to eat your brain, borrow a comrade’s ability, do it again. That loop holds.
The side missions do not. They are the part of the game that feels like filler, and the criticism aimed at them is fair. A role-playing game this long cannot afford dead weight, and Scarlet Nexus carries some.
The story is where the game takes its real swing. The Others are not just monsters. They are made from humans exposed to the Extinction Belt, and Naomi’s transformation is the proof the game drops in your lap. New Himuka experiments on people to build an army of Others. Seiran experiments on Others and humans too. Yuito’s future self says the only way to save the world is to die. That is not a twist for shock value. It is the game laying out how far both settlements will go.
The two-protagonist structure is what makes that land. Play only Yuito and you miss the Seiran side. Play only Kasane and you miss the experiments in New Himuka. Our reading is that neither recruit ever holds the whole picture, and the story is built around that gap. That is a rare thing for a game this size to attempt, and rarer still for it to work.
What holds it back from more is the unevenness. The side content drags. The pacing between the two routes can leave you replaying ground you already covered. And the game’s biggest ideas arrive late, after hours of monster fighting that does not always hint at where it is going.
Still, the combat is strong, the world is built with care, and the Red Strings reveal recontextualizes everything before it. Scarlet Nexus sold 1 million units by April 2022, and it earned that number on the strength of a loop that is genuinely hard to put down.
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