Fate/Hollow Ataraxia

Fate/hollow ataraxia is a visual novel that abandons the traditional linear gameplay and route-based system of Fate/stay night and instead uses a turn-based combat system. The game also features a significantly "lighter" tone than its predecessor, achieving it through its "slice of life" approach.^[1][2] Players experience recurring a four-day time loop in Fuyuki City,^[3][4] through the perspectives of Avenger, Shirou Emiya and Bazett Fraga McRemitz.^[5][6] An interactive aerial map of the city allows players to choose specific scenes during morning, noon, and night. Players must investigate the mystery of the loop. For progression, code triggers and progression markers known as flags track your events, story states, and time loops and are retained across loops, allowing the players to gradually unlock new events and eventually resolve the loop. Throughout the game, multiple minigames can be unlocked—including a Hanafuda card game, "Operation Illya's Castle",^[5] and a built-in chibi-style tower defense game titled "Capsule Servant" in the PS Vita/Remastered versions—along with extras like the "Eclipse" side stories.^[7][8]

Fate/Hollow Ataraxia takes place several months after the events of Fate/stay night in Fuyuki City.^[9][10] Mages' Association member, Bazett Fraga McRemitz,^[10] wakes up with amnesia on the fourth day of the Fifth Holy Grail war alongside her newly assigned servant, Avenger.^[6] She and Avenger set off to compete and win the Holy Grail War.^[11] A time loop occurs due to the tampering of Rin Tohsaka's Jewel Sword which inadvertently merged all the potential timelines of the Holy Grail War.^[12] Tohsaka later embarks on mission to fix things with the Mages' Association in England. Emiya suspects something is wrong when he finds himself repeatedly meeting Caren Ortensia in similar scenarios. He realizes that he and Bazett are in a time loop that began on the fourth day of the Fifth Holy Grail War. Each time either of them die or survive, they are sent back to the first day of the loop.

Avenger is revealed as the catalyst of the corruption of the Holy Grail in the previous Holy Grail war, and the time loop. Having become a weak Grail with the destruction of its physical vessel and his soul separated of Greater Grail in process, his spirit came across a dying Bazett and responded to her wish to live. He created the time loop inside of Bazett's mind and replicated the characters in this dream world, while the real Shirou and his friends are living peacefully in the outside world. After learning the truth from Caren, Avenger and Bazett destroy the Grail to put an end to the loop. Bazett awakens from her coma in the real world and Avenger returns to the void. He revives the participants of the Fifth Holy Grail War who died more than half a year ago, excluding Kotomine Kirei. In the epilogue, Bazett quits the Magic Association and becomes a freelancer.

After the release of the Fate/stay night visual novel, there were no plans for a sequel. As Kinoko Nasu felt Emiya's character arc and the Holy Grail War fully concluded within the three original routes. The concept of hollow ataraxia started with Nasu's idea to merge the routes of Fate/stay night into a "cohesive" story,^[13] inspired by the concept of their previous work, Kagetsu Tohya.^[13] It was designed as a fan-disc and pseudo-sequel to Fate/stay night.^[13][14] Development for Fate/hollow ataraxia began after the release of its predecessor in January 2004. Nasu was responsible for writing the narrative,^[15] while Takashi Takeuchi handled the character designer as the art director. For work on the scenario, Nasu contributed alongside sub-writers who aided with daily writing and editing.^[13] The sub-writers had included Meteo Hoshizora and several other new scenario writers to Type-Moon—including Aramoto Kei, Hikaru Sakurai, and Morisaki Ryouto.^[13] He explained that the time loop was originally six days, but was later dropped to four to avoid "dragging the storyline.^[13] Takeuchi stated that some people felt that "[hollow] should include a derivative work to serve as a summary [to] make it popular".^[13] While Nasu noted that hollow ataraxia's plot had overlapped with the initial story of his mystery visual novel Decoration Disorder Disconnection (DDD).^[13][16] Takeuchi explained that when he first heard about the plan to adapt Fate/hollow atraxia into a manga, he suggested dividing it into two separate works, with one being about daytime, and the other about nighttime.^[17]

Fate/hollow ataraxia was regarded as one of the top selling visual novels of 2005.^[36] In Japan, the PlayStation Vita (PSV) version sold 53,979 copies within its first week, ranking at fourth place amongst all Japanese software sales for the November 24–30, 2014 week of sales charts.^[37] By February 2017, the game had sold over 100,000 copies.^[38] The Steam release had an estimated over 60,000 players by March 2026.