Key and Visual Arts announced last year that Angel Beats! would be getting a visual novel in 2014 by the name of Angel Beats! 1st Beat. However, the project was postponed indefinitely earlier this year.

In a sudden development, the game has now been announced for next year. Along with the announcement came a promotional video, featured above, and a plethora of new screenshots (courtesy of Dengeki), which we’ve collected below. Note that there’s a huge spoiler under Scenarios.

The VN’s opening theme, “Heartily Song”, will be sung by Lia, who performed the opening theme of the original anime. The anime’s voice cast will also be returning. Through the protagonist, Yuzuru Otonashi, the game will cover the character arcs of Masami Iwasawa, Yui, and Matsushita. Players will even be able to prevent Iwasawa’s disappearance. The first volume, of a planned six, reportedly reaches up to the 10th episode of the anime.

Pre-orders for Angel Beats! 1st Beat will open next year on January 30th, and each pre-order will come with an unreleased CD single by the band in the Angel Beats! anime, Girls Dead Monster, titled “Million Star”. And as the above video reveals, the game will be launching on May 29.

Characters

The most important characters in the first visual novel of the series, from left to right below, will be Masami Iwasawa, Yui,  Matsushita, and Yuzuru Otonashi.

Pretty much the entire rest of the cast of the anime will be appearing. You can see their designs below. In order, they are: Kanade Tachibana, Yuri Nakamura, Hideki Hinata, Noda, Takamatsu, Fujimaki, Ooyama, TK, Takeyama, Shiina, Yusa, Ayato Naoi, Chaa, Hisako, Shiori Sekine, and  Miyuki Irie.

Environment

Scenarios