Chaos Zero Nightmare Interview

At Anime Expo 2026, Smilegate was on site to share more details about roguelite RPG Chaos Zero Nightmare‘s newest updates. During the event, game director and producer Hyungseok Kim and art director So Su-been were present, and RPGamer asked them questions about the game’s development, gameplay systems, and inspirations. All interview answers were given in Korean and communicated through a translator. Chaos Zero Nightmare is currently available for iOS, Android, and PC, with its recent July 8, 2026, update completely overhauling the game’s narrative and writing, as well as updating some gameplay elements.

Jordan McClain (RPGamer): Chaos Zero Nightmare combines roguelike runs, gacha character progression, and the “Save Data” system that persists across attempts. When you were building those systems together, what was the experience or feeling you wanted these to collectively reinforce in players?

Hyungseok Kim: One of the aspects of the roguelike genre is that once the game is over, the play record is not left over. It’s lost, but what we intended was once we have the Save Data, we can record the best moment of my play, and that was our primary goal of the game.

RPGamer: With the Save Data system persisting across repeated Chaos runs, how did you decide what information or progression should carry over between runs and what should be reset?

Hyungseok Kim: If we had no limits to Save Data — what aspects to persist, what aspects to let go — if we did not have a limit, players would be too focused on creating new Save Data, not enjoying the game. So, what we targeted was we tried to put limits to some aspects that can persist, some aspects that cannot be persisted. And frankly speaking, it’s hard to say that focusing on Save Data creation is not so much fun to players, so we’re trying to ease up the game so that players would not be too focused on creating new Save Data. We hope players would enjoy the game purely. We’re focusing our development on targeting player fun instead of players focusing on creating new Save Data.

RPGamer: In a game with repeated runs, players can approach it in different ways, with some focusing on experimentation and others on optimization. How do you think about maintaining narrative or emotional tone across those different playstyles?

Hyungseok Kim: It’s hard to give you very specific details, but we’re targeting to upgrade the system and ease up the stress of the reruns, targeting our first anniversary coming up in late October, early November. So we are aware of that problem. We’re coming up with new ways to develop the game so that we could lessen the stress for the players.

RPGamer: The idea of chaos seems central to both the structure and the tone of the game. What does chaos represent to the developers, just as sort of an overall theme?

Hyungseok Kim: The development team thought the word chaos represents, you know, something you cannot expect, and every time you experience chaos, it’s something new. The development team thought chaos was, you know, right on the point — that bullseye term for the game.

RPGamer: Chaos Zero Nightmare blends science fiction, fantasy, and psychological horror. How did you decide on that combination of influences, and what role does each play in shaping the world of the game?

Hyungseok Kim: During the early stages of the game’s development, we weren’t quite satisfied with the game’s storylines. What we’re going to do is, targeting July 8th, it’s our upcoming update. We’re going to introduce a whole new storyline for the first few chapters of the game. We’re hoping that players will be satisfied with the new storylines and the new lore. From now on, we’re going to adopt more aspects of the characters that show character breakdowns — like mental breakdowns and collapses — which would differentiate our game from other games.

RPGamer: What are the intended themes or emotions that you want to convey to players in the narrative design of Chaos Zero Nightmare?

Hyungseok Kim: First of all, I wanted to introduce the frustration system gameplay-wise, so that players would experience collapsing of their favorite characters — their facial expressions and stuff — which isn’t really common in other games. I wanted to provide some original experience through character collapses and players experiencing failures through reruns, since the game isn’t really that easy. I wanted the game to be more challenging to the players.

RPGamer: When it comes to designing the balance of the game, have there been any challenges in that regard that maybe you didn’t expect before?

Hyungseok Kim: We understand that balancing the game is one of the most difficult parts of game development. We’ve hired a lot of new competitive developers to the team. We’ve added a lot of new developers. We’re going to come up with ways to find the perfect balance of game, and introduce some more new characters, which can help with the balance of the game in the future.

RPGamer: What was the approach to the game’s art direction, and what inspired Chaos Zero Nightmare’s aesthetic?

So Su-been: Since the game implements a lot of science fiction, dark fantasy, I went through a lot anime, movies, to find references, and one of the examples was the SCP series, Alien — the movie — and also Dune.

RPGamer: Looking back on development, was there a system or idea that evolved much more than you originally anticipated from its initial conception? What led to that change?

Hyungseok Kim: It was difficult for us to expect how much stress it would be for the players to create the Save Data through the reruns, so we kind of underestimated the stress levels of the players. We’re trying to find solutions, answers, to lessen the stress level of players in the future.

RPGamer: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about Chaos Zero Nightmare, or do you have any other final thoughts?

Hyungseok Kim: Since it’s a totally new genre, something that never existed, we wish to provide greater satisfaction to the player base. In my opinion, the game is not so perfect yet. We’re trying our best to improve the quality of the game. That’s our biggest focus, targeting our first anniversary coming up. We hope for bigger, higher hopes from the users and players. We also expect more suggestions from the players.

So Su-been: We will be introducing the various characters more appealing to the players, and also more difficult, and more cool monsters, so that the players can enjoy. We hope the players will be expecting what’s coming up for the game.

RPGamer would like to thank Hyungseok Kim and So Su-been for taking the time to answer our questions, to Smilegate for providing a translator, and to Danny Cristofaro, Jacob Anderson-Kester, and Haley Bulen at fortyseven for helping coordinate and schedule the interview. Interested players can check out Chaos Zero Nightmare on iOS, Android, and PC, with its recent July 8, 2026, update completely overhauling the game’s narrative and writing, while also updating some gameplay elements.