BUZZ or DIE turns a death-row reality show into a battle for likes
Kodansha Game Creators’ Lab has announced BUZZ or DIE, a dark Steam adventure game where death-row prisoners weaponise their opponents’ pasts to win likes and a pardon.
What happens when a reality show promises freedom to its winner but turns the losers into public executions — and possibly android parts? That is the cheerfully horrifying question behind BUZZ or DIE, a new adventure game from Kodansha Game Creators’ Lab, planned for Steam in 2026.
What’s actually going on: Kodansha says indie creator Bon has joined the Game Creators’ Lab, while the developer’s in-progress game has received a refreshed Steam page and a new key visual. BUZZ or DIE places a group of death-row prisoners inside a reality show where viewers decide who survives by tapping the like button.
Players form a pair with a fellow prisoner and investigate the opponent’s past. They then use what they uncover to create short-video thumbnails by combining images and words to match a chosen theme. The goal is to attract impressions and collect more likes than the opposing team.
The winners receive a pardon and the right to have any wish granted. The losers face a live public execution, followed by the even more unpleasant prospect of having their personalities destroyed as models for slave androids. Kodansha warns that the game includes violent and grotesque imagery, as well as material that may be psychologically disturbing.
The cast includes pairs of prisoners with serious crimes and complicated histories, including a former comedian accused of bombing, a young genius hacker, a revolutionary and a cannibal chef. The player’s partner is Sagishima, a former leader of a new religious movement.
The game is split between investigation sections, where players read conversations and memories to uncover an opponent’s past, and thumbnail-production sections, where those discoveries are turned into content designed to provoke the audience. Different thumbnail choices can change the short video produced by the player’s partner.
Why you should care: BUZZ or DIE is tapping into a very modern anxiety — the idea that attention can become a currency powerful enough to decide who deserves sympathy, punishment or another click. Its visual language sounds bright and poppy, but the underlying game is about exploitation, spectacle and the moral rot of turning someone’s trauma into engagement bait.
BUZZ or DIE is planned for release in 2026 on Steam. The price is yet to be announced. Planned languages are Japanese, English and Simplified Chinese, and the game is designed for one player. Bon is developing the game, with Kodansha as publisher, while manga artist Junji Okada is creating the character illustrations and event artwork.
Our opinion
BUZZ or DIE sounds like the sort of game that smiles politely while pushing your face towards the moral abyss. The thumbnail mechanic is a sharp fit for its subject matter, turning the player into both investigator and content strategist. We are intrigued, but the violence warning is not decorative: this one should be approached as a dark psychological adventure, not a breezy social-media satire.