‘Jump Force’s ‘Death Note’ Characters Aren’t Playable

Bandai Namco’s Jump Force reveal brought together iconic characters from throughout the past 50 years, but the two representing Death Note shown at the end of the trailer above won’t be playable in the fighting game.

If you stuck around until the end of the trailer above, you would have noticed that Light Yagami and Ryuk, the two core characters from Death Note, were seen overlooking New York as characters like Naruto, Luffy, and Goku plowed through the streets. The ominous stance made it seem like they were looking over the fight instead of participating in it with the positioning of the characters making it look like there was something more to them being included in the story, and after speaking with Bandai Namco at E3, we’re able to confirm that both of these two Death Note characters will be tied to the game’s story mode.

“We teased the characters, and those have more to do with the story that we’ll be talking about as the months come,” Bandai Namco’s public relations manager Nick O’Leary told us when we asked about playing as the Death Note characters that have been revealed so far.

After explaining that those two would be story more characters, we asked specifically about whether you can play as them as not while taking into account the obvious overpowered nature of the Death Note book when it comes to a fighting game. After we mentioned how Light Yagami also isn’t a highly action-oriented characters and asked how he’d fit into the game, O’Leary confirmed that you can’t play as the two.

“So those characters will not be playable. They’re more involved with the story,” O’Leary continued.

He added that Light Yagami indeed isn’t a very action-oriented character and mentioned the limitations that others have when interacting with Ryuk, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t be playable. They’d also be able to have the advantage of writing down anyone’s name in the Death Note and being rid of them, something that’ll certainly be brought up in the story mode – it just won’t be players themselves that are doing it.

O’Leary didn’t go into detail of how the two will fit into the story mode, so it’s unclear if the whole adventure is based around them or if they’re just a part of the events. Only a select few characters have been revealed as well, so while Light Yagami and Ryuk aren’t playable, there’s still a chance that players will be able to take control of other Death Note characters should more be announced as the campaign continues.