I'm going to start a new series on here just going through my random tidbits about this almost 6 year old game (that probably doesn't have any chance of a sequel). I've shared many of these in the r/AstralChain Discord server before, but some will be entirely new!
I've spent over a thousand hours playing, reverse engineering, building tools, and modding this darn game, so I have way too many of these. And 99% of them will be entirely useless... but many will show behind-the-scenes content or ways the game works!
I'll post daily facts about this game until I run out. So stick around if you like that!
Note that many of these facts will contain full game spoilers. You have been warned! (I encourage you to play the game if you haven't, it's a real fun game from Platinum Games)
To clear up confusion, all vanilla content will be shot using red UI, while all modded content will be in green. (My outfits will also be different!)
Fun fact: An unused tutorial screenshot left in the game's files shows a Harmony Square super early on in development, featuring vastly different building placements, old Legion icons, and a NieR-esque UI. The red case's name translates to "Street Artist".
This screenshot is likely a little further on in development than the one seen in the devblog "Lend Us Your Ears", whose UI is much more akin to NieR's (especially in the bottom right):
Fun fact: There exist unused "abilityslot" icons that go beyond the triangles we see in-game (first three). Perhaps there would have been four, or even five slot Ability Codes?
Fun fact: Pictured above are unused "heliport_thumb" assets, showing debug previews of each section you were supposed to go to. This is possibly a remnant of the mission system that was repurposed halfway through development, where the case menu would show previews of where you would end up.
Image text translated is:
01 - Police Station Base
02 - Main Street Back Alley (Zone 36; photo shows the alleyway between the industrial section and the main street area)
Fun fact: Pictured above are unused thumbnails that would have been used during the investigation parts of the game. Players would have had to collect physical evidence and present them during the interrogation segments.
This was likely replaced with the "red word" system, presenting verbal evidence instead.
Fun fact: There exist unused Archive photos that display some of the brands featured in the game's world. These possibly would have been used to explain the backstory behind each brand. However, the corresponding text for them no longer exists in the files.
These have IDs between 001 and 013, whereas the rest of the Archive images begins at 5000.
Fun fact: Internally, ranks for overall difficulties and individual files range from 0-6 and 10-16, respectively. However, the "Lappy" rank given by completing files on Casual is actually rank 99, technically making it the highest rank of all.
Fun fact: Nintendo recently requested a new trademark for Astral Chain, along with some other interesting games (Mario Galaxy, Earthbound), per WIPO.
This is a regular thing that happens, and it can sometimes hint at future announcements, but it can also not. A trademark for ASTRAL CHAIN was also refiled in June 2025, but before that, the last one was in 2022.
So, maybe it will result in something? One can hope :)
Fun fact: A raw storyboard of the twins at their graduation made it into the final game, internally "phaseevent_49". On the right is the final version.
Since the game uses parallax in these cutscenes, they exist on two separate layers. (The text translates to "temporary material" and "background temporary material").
Fun fact: On January 22, 2025, a throwaway account posted to the r/PlatinumGamesInc subreddit detailing supposed new information about Astral Chain 2's development troubles.
The post provides a lot of information about the state of the game and its company, detailing stuff about why Kamiya and others left, the dire financial state of PG, and how Nintendo essentially rebooted the game's development after significant delays.
While we won't know for a while whether this post is actually true, I find a lot of the information about the in-progress game specifically to make sense with what I know about the first game. Here's some I found interesting:
One of the early levels (not the first but among the first) was set to take place on an aircraft carrier off the coast of the city.
This lines up exactly with what we know about the Ark! In every picture and concept art of the Ark we have seen, there has been this tiny island off to the right that is never explained nor shown in detail.
In the artbook, this island is even labelled as "演習ャード" (exercise yard, i.e. for military). So, this is exactly what I was hoping to see in the sequel!
Among the new Legions, there was to be an angel with blade-like wings and a tiger/sphinx-like creature.
This also makes sense to me. The game was originally going to have you capture chimeras to use as weapons, and plenty of concept art shows Legions of chimeras that never got one in the final release, so a Wing Legion would make sense. Tiger/Sphinx would probably fall under the Beast category, but it would be much better geared towards elemental abilities (think File 11 Lost in the Fog).
Players would have been able to temporarily fuse their Legions with elemental powers (fire, water, earth, air). A small selection of the Legions from the first game was planned to make a return.
This reminds me of the scrapped precursor to Ability Codes, which heavily focused on elemental powers. Though I don't know much more about this system, it logically makes sense they'd finally get to implement it in the second game.
While I love to get my hopes up about this stuff, this all remains speculation on my part. Maybe we'll hear something at the Nintendo Direct tomorrow! (...I'm not getting my hopes up.)
This Fun Fact contains a large amount of speculation about the game's development.
Fun fact: There exist many unused items in the game's files that point towards a much more fleshed out elemental system than the one we got on release. While the icons are all that remain, I speculate that these were going to be used to buff your Legion to boost attack/defense with a certain element. This system probably morphed into the Ability Codes we have today.
Fun fact: Nintendo recently requested a new trademark for Astral Chain, along with some other interesting games (Mario Galaxy, Earthbound), per WIPO.
This is a regular thing that happens, and it can sometimes hint at future announcements, but it can also not. A trademark for ASTRAL CHAIN was also refiled in June 2025, but before that, the last one was in 2022.
So, maybe it will result in something? One can hope :)
Fun fact: Astral Chain's primary skybox is actually a stitched together nighttime panorama shot from Tokyo Skytree. It's shot from the Tembo Galleria (450m above ground level), and multiple landmarks on the Sumida River are visible in it.
