one boss fight can only be activated by making specific decisions. Zero and the psychiatrist's relationship becomes strained as the psychiatrist grows increasingly disagreeable and Zero suspects he is withholding information about the assassinations. After the Dragon, a separate swordsman with clairvoyant abilities similar to Zero's, dismembers and abducts V, Zero learns about his own past as a supersoldier and that the drug he had been taking, Chronos, both gave him his abilities and causes users in withdrawal to become trapped within their minds. Zero, tired of being manipulated, kills the psychiatrist. The girl goes missing and the story ends on a cliffhanger. A flashback reveals Zero's nightmare is a memory from the war, that he is the soldier and not the child, and that the Dragon was his comrade. Development Conception Katana Zero was developed over six years by the indie game creator Justin Stander under the studio name Askiisoft. It was Stander's first commercial game; his previous projects, such as Tower of Heaven (2009), had been smaller freeware games. After seeing the success of Terry Cavanagh's VVVVVV (2010), Stander concluded audiences only pay attention to indie games if they are being sold. Cavanagh, like Stander, had started off making freeware games, but none were as successful as VVVVVV. Katana Zero originated from Stander's desires to create a larger project that could be sold commercially and tell a story. He began working on it in 2013 as a hobby during his sophomore year at McGill University. He used the GameMaker Studio 2 game engine and spent the first two years building simple prototypes. The game was a means of expression for Stander outside schoolwork and he spent most of his time at college developing it. After Stander graduated in 2015, he developed Katana Zero full time. He worked on multiple projects alongside it as a precaution since he felt the chances of success were slim. The total budget was 60,000, which Stander noted was quite small for a game of Katana Zero scope. He stated: "Most of it was just not paying myself at all and cutting down costs in my own life to do nothing but work on the game." Stander worked largely on his own, although he recruited help for the art and music. The game was initially developed for personal computers (macOS and Windows). Stander decided to develop a Nintendo Switch version immediately after the system