# Fate/Samurai Remnant

Fate/Samurai Remnant is a 2023 action role-playing video game co-developed by Omega Force and Kou Shibusawa in cooperation with Aniplex and Type-Moon, and published by Koei Tecmo. It is an entry in the Fate series, and was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows.

## Gameplay

Fate/Samurai Remnant lets players play as Miyamoto Iori. The combat is hack and slash style with some similarities to musou gameplay, but it falls under the action role-playing game genre with dodging and exploiting weaknesses being an important element. It features a wide array of stances, which the player character can switch between on the fly. Iori uses dual katanas, a widespread weapon for Samurai during the Edo period. Players can give commands to their servant, launching special attacks and combos. In certain situations, the game allows for full control of Iori's servant, as his weapons can't be used against other servants.
The game is open-world and allows for exploration of recreated districts of Edo, such as Yoshiwara, Kanda, and Akasaka.

## Plot

Miyamoto Iori is a peacekeeping ronin who is chosen to participate in the Waxing Moon Ritual, a spin-off of the Holy Grail War. Summoning Yamato Takeru, a Saber-class servant, they form an alliance with Takao Dayu and her Berserker-class servant, Iori's late master Miyamoto Musashi in exchange for information on other Masters and servants.
While investigating Yui Shousetsu and her Rider-class servant, and fighting Chiemon and his Lancer-class servant, Iori and Saber are taken to safety by Zheng Chenggong and his Archer-class servant Zhou Yu who wish to form an alliance to deal with the problematic Asssassin-class servant. After an investigation, the two meet Assassin’s master, Dorothea Coyett, who launches a powerful yet attack on the Saber-Berserker-Archer alliance, which leaves Iori injured. This prompts the appearance of the Pseudo-class servant Ototachibana-hime, who has taken residence in Kaya’s body. As such, Shousetsu detects this and sends Chiemon and Lancer to capture her.
Iori and Saber chase after Chiemon and fight Lancer at Kanagawa. However their fight is interrupted by the appearance of Rogue Servants, who had been corrupted by Tsuchimikado, the overseer of the Waxing Moon. Saber is affected but Iori is able to save them in time. Archer however had begun massacring Akasaka, resulting in his own self-sacrifice. Assassin allows his brainwashing to commence and betrays Dorothea, leaving her to ally with Iori and Saber. They find Yui Shousetsu under attack by Rider and several Rogues, while Dayu sends Musashi to quell the chaos with the corrupted servants.
Shousetsu informs Iori and Saber of Tsuchimikado's whereabouts, which was at his stronghold in Kan’ei-ji Temple. On the way, a corrupt Assassin wreaks havoc, leaving Iori and Saber to decide whenever they wanted to help Dorothea fight him or go straight to Tsuchimikado.
* If the player chooses to pursue Tsuchimikado, they will head for Kan’ei-ji Temple and witness Lancer killing him. However they will learn that Dorothea has lost her life from fighting Assassin, whom she was successfully able to kill.
* If the player chooses to pursue Assassin, they will assist Dorothea in fighting him. However they will learn that Tsuchimikado had been killed by an unknown assailant.
Both routes end with Shousetsu taking hold of the Waxing Moon's Vessel.
Having learned that Shousetsu has the Waxing Moon in hand, Iori and Saber confront her, which leads to a fight with Rider who summons a divine beast which required a group effort by the remaining competitors to defeat. Shousetsu is arrested by the Clock Tower mages, while Musashi “times out” to the world after conducting her final duel with her student, Iori.
With the Vessel in front of them, Iori chooses to destroy it but it is stolen by different people depending on the choices the player made.
* The story diverges into the Flames of Resentment route if the player chose to pursue Tsuchimikado in Chapter 4. In this route, Chiemon steals the Vessel and takes over Edo Castle, where he merges with it to become the Waxing Moon Monster.
* The story diverges into the A Ray of Light Route if the player chose to pursue Assassin in Chapter 4, preventing Dorothea's death. In this route, Zheng's new partnership with Caster is revealed as he ushers his servant in stealing the Vessel and summoning the demigod Yasomagatsuhi.
* Entreat the Darkness is only accessible in New Game+ after one of the above routes have been cleared, and diverges in Chapter 5 if Iori chooses to not destroy the Vessel. In this route, Chiemon and Caster both kill each other, while Iori and Saber fight to the death to determine the fate of the Waxing Moon.

## Characters
### Miyamoto Iori (宮本 伊織, Miyamoto Iori)

    Voiced by: Kengo Kawanishi
    Saber's Master. Iori is the adopted son and disciple of Miyamoto Musashi. He is a ronin living in Asakusa, Edo, who studied the Niten Ichiryu style of swordsmanship, but Musashi passed away before he could teach him the secrets of the art. Still seeking to master the Way of the sword, he spends his days training while making ends meet.
    As a young child, he was saved by a mysterious sword saint from the Yagorou Gang and adopted by Musashi, who trained Iori in Niten Ichiryu. Before he died, he realized that Iori had been "born in the wrong era". After Musashi's death, Iori was taken in by Sasaki Kojirou, who would teach Iori his Hidden Sword: Soaring Swallow Reversal technique.

### Saber (セイバー, Seibā) - Yamato Takeru (ヤマトタケル, Yamato Takeru)

    Voiced by: Hibiku Yamamura
    The Saber-class servant of Iori. As a Heroic Spirit, Saber was granted the protection of water, and controls watery torrents. They also wield the Noble Phantasm, Sword of Heaven: Amenomurakumo-no-Tsurugi, an aspect of the divine sword that emerged from a great serpent's tail. After fighting in a multitute of battles, they became determined to destroy the Waxing Moon.
    Their True Name is Yamato Takeru, the legendary hero, tragic prince, and conqueror of many lands throughout ancient Japan. Outcast by their family, friendless, and bereft of their lover, Takeru slaughtered people, kings, and even gods as they continued along their path. After their long journey of conquest, their loneliness growing with each battle, Yamato Takeru's spirit became a white swan, soaring through the heavens.
    Saber is the final antagonist of the Entreat the Darkness route, having become unable to sympathize with the reason of Iori's wish of keeping the Waxing Moon's Vessel intact for the sake of upheaving swordsmanship excellence.

### Zheng Chenggong (鄭成功, Tei Seikō)

    Voiced by: Tomoaki Maeno
    Archer's Master. He is a general, also known as Koxinga (国姓爺, Kokuseiya), who is highly respected by the Longwu Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty. He is the son of a Ming merchant and a Japanese mother.
    Both a military commander and a Magus. Courtesy name Mingyan, art name Damu, he was a child of mixed blood born to the Chinese Zheng Zhilong and Japanese Tagawa Matsu. Because his family helped raise Zhu Yujian, the Prince of Tang, to the throne of Emperor of Southern Ming, he was given the imperial surname "Zhu" and thereafter referred to as Koxinga, meaning "Lord of the Imperial Surname."
    During the events of the game, he forms an alliance with Iori and Saber in order to eliminate the problematic Assassin from the Waxing Moon Ritual. After Tsuchimikado corrupts Archer, Zheng ultimately asks Iori and Saber to mercifully take Archer out before anymore of Akasaka can be massacred. Although Zheng was expected to drop out of the competition afterwards, his desire to save his homeland from war prompted him to become Caster's new master after Tsuchimikado's death. He becomes the secondary final antagonist in the A Ray of Light route where he ushers Caster into stealing the Waxing Moon's Vessel from Iori.

### Archer (アーチャー, Āchā) - Zhou Yu (周瑜, Shū Yu)

    Voiced by: Kensho Ono
    The Archer-class servant of Zheng Chenggong whose true name is Zhou Yu, a general from China's Eastern Han dynasty. This iteration of Zhou Yu is a mix between the one from proper history and the fictionalized version as depicted in the story Romance of the Three Kingdoms, though Zhou Yu's personality resembles the one from proper history more. As such, he believes his Archer abilities associated with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms are a bit overpowered and given to him for no reason, though he doesn't reject them and uses them to his advantage during the Waxing Moon Ritual.

### Chiemon (地右衛門, Chiemon)

    Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto
    Lancer's Master. Chiemon is a survivor of the Shimabara Rebellion led by Amakusa Shirou Tokisada. If the Edo period can be defined as a time of peace after the Warring States period, Chiemon is someone discarded by that era.
    While he is a survivor of Shimabara, Chiemon was in fact not a soldier in the rebellion. He was far too young to fight, being only a young child at the time. He saw his mother be captured by soldiers while his father was viciously struck down trying to protect him. Afterward he was taught Magecraft by Mori Souiken.
    He and Iori were the final two contenders of the Waxing Moon during the A Ray of Light route. He is the final antagonist of the Flames of Resentment route, having merged himself with the Waxing Moon's Vessel to become the Waxing Moon Monster. In the Entreat the Darkness route, he and Caster both kill each other, which results in Lancer's disappearance as well.

### Lancer (ランサー, Ransā) - Jeanne d'Arc (ジャンヌ・ダルク, Jan'nu Daruku)

    Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto
    The original Jeanne d'Arc has no "alternative side" to her. When summoned in Edo, it was not some sort of mysterious power that drew out a new side of her, but rather the hatred residing in the heart of her summoner that stained Jeanne d'Arc's mind. Because of this mental defilement, and the forceful way in which she was summoned, her abilities were severely weakened. That, however, was precisely why a second-rate Master like Chiemon was able to bind her and make her follow his orders.

### Yui Shousetsu (由井正雪, Yui Shōsetsu)

    Voiced by: Mutsumi Tamura
    Rider's Master. Yui Shousetsu is a fierce, young warrior with tied-back hair. Because Iori had become a Master, Shousetsu thought it best to eliminate him at once, but instead departed with Rider upon judging that Iori's life was not worth taking because he knew nothing of the Waxing Moon Ritual.
    Shousetsu is actually a homunculus, a man-made being of inborn innocence created as a result of Mori Souiken's forays into Western magecraft. Unable to accept the iniquitous nature of the world of man, she chose to join the Ritual in order to right those wrongs.

### Rider (ライダー, Raidā) - Ushi Gozen (丑御前, Ushi Gozen)

    Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu
    Though initially tricking her master into believing her to be Minamoto-no-Raikou, her True Name, which she kept hidden even from Shousetsu, was Ushi Gozen - the terror of the Heian period who was said to have been killed by Minamoto-no-Raikou. Minamoto-no-Raikou was a demon child born in the city of Heian. Her demonic aspect has detached and become an independent entity named Ushi Gozen, child of Gozu-Tenno. Wishing to fulfill Shousetsu's desire to set this crooked world aright, Ushi Gozen summoned the divine messenger in Asakusa. Letting her wild instincts rise to the surface, she began to rampage across Edo in the name of righting the world.

### Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro (土御門泰広)

    Voiced by: Satoshi Mikami
    He is the current head of the Tsuchimikado house and an onmyouji descended from Abe-no-Seimei. According to Yui Shousetsu, he organized the Waxing Moon Ritual and presides over it as an observer, but secretly was also a participant in it, holding Command Spells as Caster's Master. Referring to the Waxing Moon as the "omnipotent wish granter," he curried favor with the Shogun's council of elders to earn their endorsement of his using the whole of Edo as the stage of the Ritual. The particulars of what this entailed, however, are unknown.

### Caster (キャスター, Kyasutā) - Hieda-no-Are (稗田阿礼)

    Voiced by: Anri Katsu
    Hieda-no-Are was said to have helped compile the ancient Japanese record called the Kojiki. Due to his extraordinary memory, he was tasked by O-no-Yasumaro to memorize various literary texts. He is, however, a figure largely shrouded in mystery. It is not known for certain whether he was a man or woman, or even if he really existed at all.
    Seen at Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro's side. Speaking sarcastically to Tsuchimikado, he showed no signs of obeying him, treating him instead as nothing more than a simple collaborator. It seems his abilities are somehow related to the creation of the Waxing Moon Ritual.
    He is the final antagonist of the A Ray of Light route, having used the Vessel and his master-ship with Zheng to summon the demigod Yasomagatsuhi.

### Dorothea Coyett (ドロテア・コイエット, Dorotea Koietto)

    Voiced by: Aya Hirano
    Assassin's Master. A young woman from another country who came to Japan aboard a galleon. She is the first daughter of a Swedish nobleman, Fredrick Coyett, and is a Magus who belongs to the Clock Tower. While she is set to inherit the magical affairs of her family, her brother is supposed to inherit the business front.
    In the Snake route where Iori and Saber elect to pursue Assassin during the events of Chapter 4, Dorothea is a survivor of the Waxing Moon Ritual. However in the Rat route where Iori and Saber decide to pursue Tsuchimikado instead, Dorothea and Assassin both kill each other.

### Assassin (アサシン, Asashin) - Kouga Saburo (甲賀三郎, Kōga Saburō)

    Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa
    The Assassin-class servant of Dorothea. A descendant of the Kouga clan cursed by the god Ibuki, Kouga Saburo was a mysterious man possessed of several strange abilities. He once traveled to the underworld beneath Mt. Ibuki and returned as a demon.

### Takao Dayu (高尾太夫, Takao Dayū)

    Voiced by: Ami Koshimizu
    Berserker's Master. A courtesan at Miura-ya, a brothel in Yoshiwara. She is said to be one of the most beautiful women in Edo and attracts many men including feudal lords. "Dayu" is the highest rank of courtesan, and she is one of the three most popular Dayu.
    Learning of the Waxing Moon Ritual, Dayu concluded that she could use the wish to help the people of the Edo slums. With this in mind, she approached Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro and requested to be allowed to participate despite having no magical ability. Yasuhiro agreed to her request, making it conditional to her acting as his subordinate, and grants her Command Spells.

### Berserker (バーサーカー, Bāsākā) - Miyamoto Musashi (宮本武蔵)

    Voiced by: Ayane Sakura
    The Berserker-class servant of Takao Dayu whose true name is Miyamoto Musashi, which is a shortened form of Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara-no-Harunobu (新免武蔵守藤原玄信). She is the founder of the Niten Ichiryu swordstyle and a parallel world version of the same Miyamoto Musashi who trained Iori. As opposed to her male counterpart, she comes from a world where she was born a woman, though her sharp swordsmanship and wild nature is just as how Iori remembers.
    Unlike the other servants who have no memory of being summoned on previous (or future) occasions, this Musashi retains her memories as a Saber-class servant from the continuity established in Fate/Grand Order. From her perspective, the game occurs after Chapter 1.5: Epic of Remnant and before the events of the Olympus Lostbelt.

### Rogue servants
#### Rogue Saber (逸れのセイバー, Hagure no Seibā) - Kiso Yoshinaka (木曾義仲)

    Voiced by: Tōru Sakurai
    The hero who defeated the Taira clan's forces at the Battle of Kurikara and the conqueror of the Hokuriku region. He did well in climbing the ranks, even being asked by the former emperor to guard the capital, but was ultimately defeated by Minamoto Noriyori and Minamoto Yoshitsune, who were under orders from their brother, Minamoto Yoritomo. After fighting in countless battles with his wife, Tomoe Gozen, but his side, he had her removed from his forces at the end so that she might survive, and he then died at the Battle of Awazu.
    Tomoe Gozen had ogre blood in her veins, though not the savage kind. Rather, she was descended from good ogres who revered peace and harmony. It was precisely because of his love for his wife's good nature that he detested and sought to slay the "Evil Ogre" who was operating from the shadows in Edo.

#### Rogue Archer (逸れのアーチャー, Hagure no Āchā) - Arjuna (アルジュナ, Arujuna)

    Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki
    The great hero written about in the ancient Indian epic poem known as the Mahabharata. He was an archer of unparalleled skill, who received the divine bow Gandiva from the fire god Agni, and used this to leave his mark on the battlefield.

#### Rogue Lancer (逸れのランサー, Hagure no Ransā) - Cú Chulainn (クー・フーリン, Kū Fūrin)

    Voiced by: Nobutoshi Canna
    A great hero in Celtic mythology and wielder of the magical spear Gáe Bolg, which boasts frightening power and accuracy. He asked Iori and Saber for a serious bout, and he seemed satisfied with the result. After revealing his True Name, he promised his total cooperation and assistance going forward.

#### Rogue Rider (逸れのライダー, Hagure no Raidā) - Tamamo Aria (タマモアリア)

    Voiced by: Chiwa Saitō
    A Rogue Servant bound to Ueno who calls herself Tamamo Aria. It would seem her delicate charm and quirky mannerisms have captured the hearts of many men in town. She claims to be in search of "the most beautiful thing." She is an Alter Ego formed from one of Tamamo no Mae's eight discarded tails, having retained divine status and manifested as an independent Heroic Spirit.

#### Rogue Caster (逸れのキャスター, Hagure no Kyasutā) - Circe (キルケー, Kirukē)

    Voiced by: Himika Akaneya
    The Falcon Witch featured in Western myths from areas around the Mediterranean Sea. According to a certain poet, though she greeted a group of sailors who landed on her island with a smile, she turned those who ate the porridge she offered them into beasts with a wave of her wand...but that's a story for another day!

#### Rogue Assassin (逸れのアサシン, Hagure no Asashin) - Li Shuwen (李書文, Ri Shobun)

    Voiced by: Yasui Kunihiko
    The legendary master of the martial art Bajiquan who lived in a time several hundreds of years after the Waxing Moon Ritual. During matches he fought in his former life, no matter how small the blow he managed to land on his opponent, they would wind up dead. This led to him being heralded as a martial artist who never had to strike the same man twice. He is summoned in his older years compared to the younger Li Shuwen in Fate/Extra.

#### Rogue Berserker (逸れのバーサーカー, Hagure no Bāsākā) - Samson (サムソン, Samuson)

    Voiced by: Daisuke Endo
    The hero of Israel spoken of in the Old Testament. He was the redoubtable judge who slayed lions and felled opponents in droves. Consecrated at birth, he would remain invincible so long as he never drank alcohol or cut his hair. And yet, after revealing the secret of his invulnerability to his love Delilah, he was betrayed. When Samson laid eyes on Takao Dayu for the first time, he was immediately taken with her. For him, she bore the same presence as the person he loved, resented, and longed to forgive.

#### Rogue Ruler (逸れのルーラー, Hagure no Rūrā) - Gilgamesh (ギルガメッシュ, Girugamesshu)

    Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki
    The King of Heroes who appeared in several other stories in the Fate franchise, now appears as a Ruler-class Servant, the arbiter of the Waxing Moon Ritual. Known only as Boss (若旦那, Wakadanna, "young master"), the proprietor of the textile wholesaler Babiloni-ya (巴比倫式屋), he casually alludes to his regal station without the slightest slip in his arrogant attitude. He has no interest whatsoever in pursuing the Waxing Moon, preferring instead to devote his time to collecting rare items and making candy. Perhaps this is why so many children in Asakusa have grown so fond of him. After Iori and Saber rescued one of those cherished children, he praised their efforts and enlisted them as royal servants.

#### Rogue Ruler (逸れのルーラー, Hagure no Rūrā) - Ibuki-douji (伊吹童子) / Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇)

    Voiced by: Aoi Yuki
    A Rogue Ruler-class servant previously sealed away by Gilgamesh, she appears exclusively in the game's first DLC. Unlike her Saber-class incarnation from Fate/Grand Order, she uses a different variation of her Noble Phantasm due to her past being inherently tied with Yamato Takeru's, her being which Takeru retrieved his famous sword from, ultimately realizing that her weapon was not the divine sword she believed it to be in this world.

#### Rogue Saber (逸れのセイバー, Hagure no Seibā) - Yagyū Munenori (柳生 宗矩)

    Voiced by: Chikahiro Kobayashi
    A Rogue Saber-class servant and a master swordsman. Having died five days prior to the events the second DLC, he was summoned to the streets of Edo in light of a series of night-time murders in the city committed by the rumored Tsujigiri, where he assists Iori in investigating. This version is a younger iteration of the character as seen in Fate/Grand Order.

#### Rogue Rider (逸れのライダー, Hagure no Raidā) - Zhao Yun (趙雲)

    Voiced by: Yohei Azakami
    A Rogue Rider-class servant and a hero from the Three Kingdoms period. In the events of the third and final DLC, he arrives in Akasaka to search for his "young prince", who was kidnapped by a bird monster.

#### Rogue Berserker (逸れのバーサーカー, Hagure no Bāsākā) - Kishimojin (鬼子母神)

    Voiced by: Kaori Nazuka
    A Rogue Berserker-class servant summoned during the disturbance that occurs at Asakusa during the events of the third DLC.

### Other
#### Ogasawara Kaya (小笠原カヤ)

    Voiced by: Misaki Kuno
    Miyamoto Iori's younger foster sister. After Miyamoto Musashi's death, she was adopted by the Ogasawara family. Worried about her brother, she often stays at his house in Asakusa to look after him.

#### Ototachibana-hime (オトタチバナヒメ)

    Voiced by: Misaki Kuno
    A woman with an ethereal smile of mercy who looks just like Ogasawara Kaya. She healed Iori of his fever after he had been contaminated with Assassin's poison. She is Yamato Takeru's bride in life, Ototachibana-hime. Due to the unusual nature of the summoning, the fifteenth Servant materialized not by herself but by possessing Kaya. Through Kaya's eyes, she watched over Saber's struggles during the Ritual. Kaya herself, however, seems to be unaware of the other woman lurking within her.

## Development

On December 31, 2022 Type-Moon & Aniplex announced during a special television broadcast on BS11 that a new role-playing video game entry in the Fate/stay night series was in development at Koei Tecmo. Gameplay of the game was leaked a day ahead of its formal showcase at a Nintendo Direct on June 21, 2023. Shortly after it was announced that Omega Force would be leading development alongside Aniplex and Type-Moon. The creator of Fate/stay night, Kinoko Nasu, would be aiding as supervisor, with veteran Fate series writers Hikaru Sakurai, known for Fate/Extra and Yuichiro Higashida, known for Fate/Apocrypha, writing the game. Music would be composed by Keita Haga, known for his work on Tsukihime and Melty Blood, as well as Daisuke Shinoda, known for Wild Hearts. The opening animation sequence is produced by CloverWorks.
In an interview with 4gamer, the director of the game, Ryota Matsushita, mentioned that the development of Fate/Samurai Remnant started at Omega Force in 2018, and that the idea was spurred due to Koei Tecmo CEO Yōichi Erikawa being a fan of Fate/Grand Order. Fate/Samurai Remnant was developed using Koei Tecmo's in-house engine called "Katana Engine".

## Release

Fate/Samurai Remnant was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows on September 28, 2023. In addition to the standard edition, a physical "Treasure Box" edition was made available which included supplemental material, a poster, a physical CD to the game's soundtrack and Command Spell stickers.

### Downloadable content

The physical "Treasure Box" edition included a redeemable code for a set of in-game costumes for Iori and Saber.
A season pass is also available for purchase, which includes exclusive in-game weapon mountings that can be used immediately in the game. It also gives discounted access to three downloadable content (DLC) chapters released in 2024. The first chapter, Record's Fragment: Keian Command Championship, focuses on Boss and a new servant named Ibuki Douji, and was released on on February 9. The second chapter, Record's Fragment: Yagyu Sword Chronicles, focuses on a new servant named Yagyu Munenori, and was released on April 18. The third and final chapter, Record's Fragment: Bailong and the Crimson Demon, focuses on Zhao Jun and was released on June 20.

## Reception
### Critical reception

Aggregate scores :
| Aggregator | Score |
| Metacritic | 81/100 |
| OpenCritic | 92% |
Review score :
| Publication | Score |
| Famitsu | 36/40 |
Fate/Samurai Remnant received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

### Sales

As of April 30, 2024, Fate/Samurai Remnant had sold 410,000 units globally.

## Other media

A short manga featuring an introduction to the game's setting was published in "TYPE-MOON Ace" VOL.15 by KADOKAWA.
A promotional anime featuring Saber and Berserker was broadcast in Japan in December 2023 as part of a New Years' celebration with the Fate series. It depicts Saber and Berserker traveling around Japan and eating.
Several characters from the game were made playable in Fate/Grand Order as part of its collaboration with Samurai Remnant from January 17 to February 7, 2024.