| Shadow Hearts: Covenant | |
|---|---|
 North American box art, showing protagonist Karin Koenig. | |
| Developer(s) | Nautilus |
| Publisher(s) |
|
| Director(s) | Matsuzo Machida |
| Producer(s) | Asako Oikawa |
| Designer(s) | Takehiro Ishida |
| Programmer(s) | Izumi Hamamoto |
| Artist(s) | Miyako Kato |
| Writer(s) | Matsuzo Machida |
| Composer(s) | Yoshitaka Hirota Yasunori Mitsuda Kenji Ito |
| Series | Shadow Hearts |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Shadow Hearts: Covenant[a] is a role-playing video game developed by Nautilus (Sacnoth) for the PlayStation 2, and is the second entry in the Shadow Hearts series. Published in Japan by Aruze in 2004, the game was released internationally by Midway Games in 2004 (North America) and 2005 (Europe). A director's cut with additional content was released in Japan in 2005.
Covenant takes place in 1915, six months after the events of the first game. At the height of World War I, German Army lieutenant Karin Koenig is drawn into a conflict between original protagonist Yuri Hyuga and the secret society Sapientes Gladio. During gameplay, the player explores various locations through a growing party of characters. Four characters take part in turn-based battles against a variety of enemies, with actions relying on a timing-based system dubbed the Judgment Ring. The game's worldview combines alternate history with elements of Lovecraftian horror.
Covenant began development in the autumn of 2002; returning staff members included writer and director Matsuzo Machida, artist Miyako Kato, and composer Yoshitaka Hirota. The team redesigned the battle system and altered the story's tone based on feedback from the first game's players. The localization was handled by Jeremy Blaustein, who remembered the game as one of his favorite projects. Selling around 240,000 units in Japan and North America, the game was praised by reviewers. It has since been ranked by several journalistic sites as one of the best games of its time. A third Shadow Hearts title, Shadow Hearts: From the New World, was released in 2005.
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