Danganronpa creator delayed his own game because he wants to play GTA 6 instead

Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka just confessed the real reason his new game slipped a year, and it wasn’t bugs.

Danganronpa 2×2 was billed as a straightforward retelling with a meatier story mode, so a shift from 2026 to early 2027 looked routine enough. But GTA 6 has already cleared its entire release month of every other AAA rival, and it turns out even a beloved anime murder mystery didn’t want to test its luck.

Kodaka blames GTA 6 for the delay

Speaking with Crunchyroll at Anime Expo 2026, producer Shohei Sakakibara explained that the team needed more development time. He also pointed to something bigger: an unnamed AAA or AAAA title landing in the same window that Spike Chunsoft wanted to avoid.

Asked directly if he meant GTA 6, Kodaka didn’t deny it. He laughed and admitted, “I wouldn’t have time to make the game while playing GTA 6.”

Studios don’t usually admit that much, but at least here the extra months are buying something real besides the many hours Kodaka will likely put into Rockstar’s next game. That something is Slayhem, a brand new alternate storyline Kodaka says runs about 120 percent the length of the original, plus a fully rebuilt 3D world that finally replaces the series’ old side-scrolling maps.

Kodaka has a track record with sprawling, branch-heavy stories. His post-Danganronpa passion project, The Hundred Line, packed in 100 different endings, and he’s already teased wanting to add even more.