What is Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains?

The first Attack on Titan game: a hungry handheld action title that beat every console version to market.

Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains was developed by Spike Chunsoft for the Nintendo 3DS and released in Japan on 5 December 2013 as Shingeki no Kyojin: Jinrui Saigo no Tsubasa, “The Last Wings of Mankind.” An expanded edition, Jinrui Saigo no Tsubasa CHAIN, followed in December 2014, and Atlus published that version in the West: North America on 12 May 2015 and Europe on 2 July 2015, digital-only via the eShop.

It is a mission-based action game built around the 3DS’s limits: small arenas, wire-swinging simplified to speed and timing, Titans as climbing puzzles. Critics were unkind (its Metacritic average sits at 46), and as an object it is better understood as a first draft of an idea, the licence tested on the cheapest hardware before Koei Tecmo spent real money on it. Collectors note the split identity: the Japanese retail cartridges (two editions) versus the West’s download-only release, which left no English physical copy to shelve.

Attack on Titan Humanity in Chains Japanese Nintendo 3DS box art — **THE 3DS GAME**The Japanese 3DS box: Spike Chunsoft’s handheld take on life inside the walls.

THE RECORD

Dates and editions

Japan · 5 Dec 2013

Original 3DS release, Spike Chunsoft. The franchise enters games eight months after the anime premiere.

CHAIN edition · Dec 2014

The expanded Japanese re-release, and the version the West received. Same cartridge family, more content.

West · May–Jul 2015

Atlus, eShop only. No English box exists; a “complete Western set” of this title is a download code and a memory.

What is Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains?

THE RECORD

THE FIRST WORD