Is Code Vein a sequel to God Eater?

Code Vein is an anime-esque Souls-like spin-off of the God Eater series. Despite being the first entry in the genre for Shift, it received an unexpectedly warm reception and managed to sell over a million copies in its first year.

Codename

The game is referred to internally as "GEZ" for "God Eater Zero"; the developers wanted to work on a new IP while Bandai-Namco wanted to emphasise existing properties, so they disguised Code Vein as a game in the God Eater franchise.

Story and Companions

Internally, the areas are numbered in a way that does not reflect the actual order they're encountered in-game.

Initially the game was intended to start with a first-person cutscene, leaving their character ambiguous at the time. The cutscene ends with the player being likely "killed" by the Queen during the section that is dubbed "memory of" in the final game and is available much later in the story, which would've smoothly followed into the cutscene of the player waking up in a field hospital tent with Karen - this cutscene is used in the final game in its in-engine variant (a prerendered version exists as well). The cutscene also starts in first-person as the player was meant to define their character at the end as they're handed the "medical form" by Karen. In the final game, the cutscene jumps to third-person as soon as the PDA is handed to the player. Beyond that point, the game would've continued with the player memory section as its first area as a tutorial.

It is unclear why the order was changed. It's possible that the memory segment was considered to be more of a mechanical than worldbuilding type of tutorial and as such a new tutorial section was made with the already-made section shifted to being an optional area later in the progression. Following changes in story order, some of the exposition elements were shifted from being prerendered cutscenes to memory vestiges, such as Silvas' speech.

Unused voicelines also imply that originally companions were predefined per area or stage of the story, much like how Jack is forced as the player's only companion during their memory stage. Not many voicelines detailing initial plans for companions have been left in the final game.

Scrapped Online Modes

Various strings and items left in the files suggest that the game's multiplayer was intended to be much closer to Dark Souls with invasions/PvP and potentially covenants. The final game shipped with co-op as its primary and only online mode.

It also appears that each type of online interaction would've rewarded the players with different items. In the final game, only "Marks of Honor" are obtainable through normal co-op interactions (helping host player to defeat a boss), however the game also has defined "Bloodstained Dogtags" and "Broken Fangs" which were intended as online reward items. Blodstained Dogtags would be awarded to players who managed to kill an invader, and Broken Fangs would be given to the invader who managed to kill their target (or possibly also another co-op player?).

Test Level

A sample Unreal Engine 4 test level, named "work". It can still be loaded if the player uses a console unlocker mod, loads up their save file, and then uses the "open work" console command.

The level is empty besides a walkable floor and a sky sphere.

Unused Items and Abilities

It appears that initially the developers intended for most if not all enemy weapons to be obtainable (which would make sense since their models already exist as they're used by the enemies), however besides models and textures (obviously) the only indication of them ever being planned to be obtainable by the player are their names and descriptions.

Depths

Remainders of orignal files for depths imply that initial plan for the depths might've been strongly inspired by Bloodbornes Chalice Dungeons with depths being procedurally generated (to some unknown extent).

This idea morphed over time to lesser and lesser forms with potential peak being a plan for each depths theme having two maps, one being fixed/handmade (as the ones available in the final game) and one procedurally-generated variant.

Over time, names of the depths also changed slightly with alterations like "Null District" being renamed to Zero District or "Empty White" becoming Silent White. Map items for some of the original depths still exist in the final game, however they do not serve any function anymore.

Domino's Pizza

Present in the files are several unused voicelines for home-base characters that praise Domino's Pizza.

It is speculated that the voicelines were recorded for a collaborative promotion that was meant to take place at one point, but fell through contractually due to the game being delayed. It is unknown how the collab event would've worked or when it would take place.

Unused Audio

The game's files contain several unused audio tracks. Some are unused mixes of existing game tracks (like variant of theme used only in first trailer), while others are directly taken from previous God Eater games.

Perhaps most interesting is the presence of "Velvet room theme" from the Persona 3 soundtrack, likely as a placeholder.

Unused Models

It appears that key promotional art was done in-engine (or even directly in-game) using copies of actual game assets as some of them are still contained within game files. Final game contains couple of high-poly character models that have been pre-posed and exported as static meshes, it is unknown why only some of those assets have been left in the files instead of either removing all of them or leaving all of them in the files.

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