Prepare your fragments boys and girls. After many years of eager anticipation, Ryukishi07 himself has finally dropped the bomb that a new When They Cry series is on it’s way, and development is scheduled to commence in 2017! The source of this news is a random tweet he made today, the 30th of December 2016.
Reddit user Spymotox has provided a translation of the tweet as seen below:
Yesterday, I heard from the personal that there were a lot of Umineko fans at the comiket booth… For seeing that much people cosplaying our characters even in the middle of the winter, I would like to thank you. The development for the next game from the “when they cry” series is scheduled to start in 2017. It is expected that this game will be completely different compared to “Higurashi” and “Umineko”. I wish you a happy new year.
Quite a bomb to just suddenly drop on Twitter. Not a lot we have to go by, but I think we can agree it’s been made pretty unambiguous that this IS going to be When They Cry 5, and not another non-WTC series or a new Higurashi arc. What remains to be seen is what truly defines a When They Cry game according to Ryukishi. We can make inferences based on the similarities between Higurashi and Umineko (murder mystery stories with repeating series of events), but considering his comment that this story will be completely different to Higurashi and Umineko, anything is possible. Will this new When They Cry be the game to quench the fans’ thirst? Or will it appeal to an entirely new demographic? Only time will tell.
Suffice to say, we at Rokkenjima will be keeping both eyes keenly focused on its development and report everything we find. And once it does release, we hope to provide a space for readers to analyse and discuss the series on the forum.
Now then. Let the baseless speculation begin!
