felt he could treat them respectfully. Stander said the script was rewritten around 30 times. Stander allowed the player to interrupt any line of spoken dialogue because many of the action games he grew up playing "would grind to a halt as the protagonist and the second banana argued about politics, or when the villain deigned to deliver a winding monologue". He considered this one of the biggest problems with cutscenes, as they strip players of their agency. Additionally, Stander felt an assassin like Zero would not wait to listen to a villain justify their schemes. He was conscious speedrunners would skip all the dialogue and included in-game consequences for interrupting constantly to create a sense of realism. He adopted a show-don't-tell approach to convey as much of the story, themes, and characters as possible through just visuals. A level in which the player controls the Dragon was intended to show the character's lethality without words. The dialogue tree system originated from Stander's concept for a role-playing video game (RPG) that centered on limitlessness, allowing the player to interact with any object and fight any NPC. He wanted every action to have repercussions, which he likened to the Grand Theft Auto games. Although he never developed the RPG, Stander reincorporated the dialogue system in Katana Zero to keep the pacing consistent. Difficulty arose from finding the right timing between interrupting and responding. Playtesters would choose the wrong response if they interrupted too late, or unintentionally interrupt by taking too much time to respond. Stander resolved the problem using "coyote time", a trick in game development in which developers provide the player a brief interval to make their decision even if the on-screen window of opportunity has passed. Stander kept the stakes for each dialogue choice minimal to reduce tension and make choosing a response feel natural. He noted "even the ones that seem big will peter out or resolve themselves", similar to Telltale Games' The Walking Dead series, such as an instance in which a decision will cause the player to temporarily lose their sword. However, he said "the way the story is told is entirely dependent on [the player's] choices", noting worldbuilding and character relationships can change depending on the dialogue options. For example, Zero's relationship with the psychiatrist suffers if the player ignores his orders, which can lead to alternate story paths in which Zero learns information he