Today, it was announced that 07th Expansion’s Visual Novel Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Hou, which initially released for Switch on July 26th 2018, will launch for PlayStation 4 as well on January 24th 2019.
Higurashi Hou is an ultimate version of sorts of the Higurashi Visual Novel. The game is fully voiced, has new illustrations, new music and last but not least many additional chapters and stories. The PlayStation 4 version will have yet another additional chapter compared to the Switch one, for a total of 23 chapters.
Higurashi Hou is a mystery game following characters living in Hinamizawa, a remote mountainous Japanese village. Each year during the village’s festival, strange disappearances and murders occur. Choices made by the player determine the story and which chapter they’ll end up in, ultimately solving the mystery or meeting a cruel end. This is different from the original PC Higurashi games, where each game was its own chapter, making them choiceless kinetic Visual Novels. Higurashi is part of the When They Cry series, my favorite Visual Novel series, which also contains Umineko no Naku Koro ni. Both are extremely popular, with many anime, manga, and live-action adaptations.
It’s highly unlikely Higurashi Hou will release in the west, but all of the When They Cry series’ original PC games are available in English.