A cinematic, tactical TTRPG that will make you feel like a badass, shonen anime character. You play as Operatives from the Devil Division, kicking the piss out of grotesque Devils and Monsters all over 199X Tokyo. Detect. Detain. Destroy.
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Welcome to the first of our monthly post-campaign updates. We said we'd go quiet for four to six weeks, we managed about thirty seconds, and then everything sped right back up again. Classic.
So, what have we actually been up to?
Creative Meetings: Classes.
We've kicked off a series of creative meetings covering the classes and the first few have been genuinely great. The format is simple: everyone gets pizza, everyone says what cool things they think players should be able to do, and somehow a game gets designed. It's a good system.
We've got a solid sense of direction for both the NDOs and XOs coming out of those early sessions. Next up we'll be covering Baselines and Hybrids, with the Contractor following once we've got the Devils outlined, since that class is built around what's captured and we need to know what's being captured first.
More detail on specific class directions as things solidify.
Pledge Manager.
We're tinkering away on it steadily and the current plan is to have it open for pre-orders and add-ons by the end of July. We've got a lot done on it already so it may well be done sooner than that just depends how long it takes for our logistics partners to review everything.
More updates to come as the months go on. Hop in the Discord if you want the more day-to-day stuff in between these.
Over £269,000/$360,000 raised in a month. Our biggest project to date, and it isn't close.
Obviously the amount of people and funds raised are amazing but for me personally, the best thing has been seeing our little community grow even bigger. I used to be able to pop into the Discord every day and have a sense of everything that was going on. That's not possible now, and I mean that as the best kind of problem to have.
Being a community led game company has always been our goal. Your feedback, your suggestions, your questions, your arguments in the server about which School is best, all of that is going to be a core part of how this game gets made. The playtesting journey starts with you and we intend to lean into that hard.
What Happens Next
We're going to go a little quiet for the next four to six weeks. There's a lot to plan: the pledge manager needs setting up, the next year needs mapping out, and the team needs a breath before we go heads down into production. We've earned it. So have you, frankly. Our commitment for all our projects is at least one update every month so look forward to them!
That said, the Discord will stay active throughout. If you're not in there yet, come and join us. That's where we'll be.
Thank you to everyone who backed, shared, commented, posted, and dragged a friend in by the collar. Thank you to everyone who asked questions in the Q&A, voted in the polls, and told us what you wanted to see. Thank you to Matt Colville and the MCDM team. Thank you to Tonton Revolver. Thank you to Dushan and the OMM team. Thank you to Grant and Raya. Thank you to Dave Thaumavore. Thank you to everyone who showed up at UKGE and said hello.
Here's to what comes next!
"As long as the Earth, Sun, and Moon exist, everything will be alright."
£250K! We Unlocked Solo Rules and Foundry Is The Final Stretch Goal. Five Hours Left!
Jesus, that was fast!
£250,000. Solo Rules are confirmed and going to be developed for the game. Thank you, genuinely, for the absolutely relentless pace of this final stretch.
New Stretch Goal: Foundry Support at £300K
We heard you all campaign on Foundry and we're putting it on the board. £300K unlocks full Foundry VTT support for Night Shift: Devil Division.
Yes, we have five hours left on the clock. Yes, we also have Overtime. We're not ruling anything out. You've surprised us at every single milestone of this campaign so let's see what you've got for the finale. Share the page, upgrade your pledge, make some noise, and let's go out with a bang.
Overtime — Live Now / Starting Soon
We're live streaming the Overtime Period from 10am PST / 6pm BST. Come hang out, ask questions, watch the counter move, and help us push toward £300K in real time. Watch either on the BackerKit page or over on our YouTube channel.
NEW ART: Shibuya Scramble
Check out this new art from our environment artist, Hachio! Shibuya Scramble and it's UT-Zone counterpart.
Apologies for the slight delay on these. I wanted to iron out a few minor issues and dot some i's before putting them in front of you. I've almost certainly not caught everything, so if you spot any mistakes or have questions, come find us in the Discordand we'll sort it out.
These are a work in progress and deliberately slimmed down. They are not feature complete and they're not a full picture of what the two main books will contain. That said, there's still 100 pages of content in here and more than enough to get a real feel for how the game plays. Dig in and enjoy.
The final stretch of this campaign has been something else. We cruised past the custom music stretch goal which means battle tunes and original music in the style of the trailer are coming. Speaking of the trailer, it's just crossed one million views. One million. That's fucking ridiculous and we're still processing it.
Solo Rules are the next goal and they are within reach if we can keep the pace up through these final hours. It was one of the most requested additions we saw throughout the campaign and we'd love to be able to confirm it.
Share the page, send it to one more person, and let's see if we can get there
On Foundry: we saw the requests and we hear you. It's not a current stretch goal but it's something we will endeavour to support down the line. We wanted to acknowledge it rather than leave it unanswered.
OVERTIME — Tomorrow, We Go Live
Just like in the World Cup, when the clock runs out we're going to extra time. Tomorrow we'll be live streaming the Overtime Period right through until the backer train pulls into the station. It could be ten minutes, it could be longer. Either way we'll make those ten minutes count.
Come by, ask questions, chat with us, and let's close this thing out together. The stream link should be live on the page and will go live at 10am PST/6pm BST.
Games We Love: Nine Tails
While we were at UKGE I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely couple from Japan who run a board game shop in Shinjuku. They have a new board game launching on Kickstarter soon called Nine Tails and it looks brilliant.
You are an ancient yokai spirit, friend and mentor to the forest foxes. Help your foxes improve their skills, use tricks upon rival foxes and villagers, and earn the nine tails they need to ascend to heaven.
They're a small outfit and they'd genuinely appreciate the support. We'll be backing it ourselves. If that sounds like your kind of thing, give them a follow and keep an eye out for the launch.
First, an apology. I fully intended to post an update from UKGE and it just didn't happen. We were flat out the entire weekend and by the end of each day there was nothing left in the tank. So, sorry for the silence.
That said, UKGE was brilliant. It was genuinely great to meet so many of you and talk Ronin, Berserkr, and Devil Division across the weekend. We also had some exciting meetings that we're hopeful will turn into something real down the line. More on that when there's more to say!
Anyway. You're not here for the UKGE debrief. You're here because we hit £200,000... which is a bonkers thing for us to write, haha!
The Starter Rules Will Be Out Before Thursday
We've been working on getting these into a shareable state and they're nearly ready! We wanted to get them out today but I'm being a picky bastard and fixing some last bits before we let you download them. So blame me (Sacha/Slightly).
A quick note on them: the Starter Rules are a condensed version of the rules that will feature across both main books. They're a work in progress and they're intentionally streamlined, designed to give you a functional sense of how the game plays. Think of them as a taster.
The £200K Stretch Goal: A Devil Division Manga
I wanted to post this in anticipation of hitting the milestone and instead I get to post it as a confirmation!
The £200K stretch goal is the first volume of a manga set in theDevil Division world. I'll be handling the writing and collaborating with a manga artist to build something that extends the lore and gives people a real sense of what Operations and Engagements look like from the inside. What it actually feels like to be a Red Crow. What the UT-Zone looks like when you're exploring it.
It's early days. This will come after the game itself is finished and in your hands, and we'll share more details as they develop. What we can tell you now is that it's included for all backers at £115 and above, and will also be available as an add-on in the pledge manager for everyone else.
OMM VTT Support — Unlocked. And We Met Dushan
One More Multiverse support is confirmed and unlocked. On top of that, I got to chat with Dushan from the OMM team at UKGE this weekend and it was a genuinely great conversation. Talking through ideas in person made us even more excited about what we can build there. More to come on that front.
Reminder: backers at £115 and above will get their choice of a free VTT code, Codex or OMM. You pick whichever platform suits your table.
Crystal Maggie Dice — Production Samples
We finally got images back from production and they are looking very slick. See for yourselves below.
A Genuine Thank You To Matt Colville and the MCDM Team
A lot of you recent Operatives found your way here through Matt's video and we want to acknowledge that properly. Without the MCDM team's support, and without Draw Steel as the foundation we're building on, this campaign doesn't look the way it does. So thank you to Matt and the whole team. It means a lot and we don't take it for granted.
Three Days Left. What Do You Want To See?
The campaign has blown past every expectation we had going into it. With three days left we think there's a real chance of clearing at least one more stretch goal, maybe two. Before we decide anything internally we wanted to ask you directly: is there anything you'd like to see us explore?
We can't make guarantees and we'll be talking it through as a team, but your input genuinely feeds into those conversations. Drop your thoughts in the comments below. You made this campaign what it is, so it feels right to ask.
£165K. $220K. Starter Set Upgrade In Sight. UKGE. Lore Drop.
£165,000. $220,000. Still climbing.
We're fast closing in on the Starter Set upgrade at £170K and with just over a week left in the campaign we're making a push for £190K and One More Multiversesupport too. The back half of a crowdfunding campaign is always the grind, and every share still genuinely matters. If you haven't yet, point someone at the campaign page.
Poll Result: The Old Feud and The Sundering
Another close one. The Old Feud and The Sundering edged out the competition by just a few votes. You asked for it, so here it is.
INCOMING MESSAGE:
UKGE — We'll Be There All Weekend
We're heading to UK Games Expo this week. Come and find us at Stand 3A-731. We'll have Rōnin and Berserkr goodies on the table and I'll be there all weekend to answer any Night Shift: Devil Division questions you have. Nothing is off the table. Shoot away.
Fair warning: with a chunk of the SRG team away at the show we may be a little slower in the Discord and on support through the weekend. Jack and Mill will still be on hand if you need anything urgent, and everything will be back to normal come Monday.
If you're going, come and say hello. We'd love to meet you.
Keep sharing. Let's see what the last week holds!
// Operative Slightly and the SRG Ware Peddlers, out.
(text version)
Before the Division existed, before the Accord, before any of the institutional machinery that currently keeps Tokyo's Devils managed and its secrets buried, there were two traditions. They did not get along.
The Endogenic schools, known collectively as the Composition tradition, held that Kegare was a problem of accumulation. Cities generated spiritual residue because people generated spiritual residue, and the correct response was to burn it away through concentrated breath work applied at scale. Clean the vessel. Maintain the pressure. Do not let the city's grief grow heavier than the city can carry. They were disciplined, hierarchical, and absolutely certain they were right.
The Exokinetic schools, known collectively as the Manipulation tradition, held that Kegare was not something to be destroyed but something to be understood and contained. Projection. Binding. Seal construction. The residue of human experience could be given shape, held at distance, negotiated with. They were precise, methodical, and equally certain the Composition schools were going to kill someone.
They argued about this for generations. The argument calcified into institutional doctrine and the institutional doctrine calcified into something that looked, by the middle of the nineteenth century, indistinguishable from hatred.
Both traditions knew that Edo was approaching a breaking point. The city had been growing faster than its infrastructure could absorb, a population compressed into a rigid social order that demanded enormous amounts of human feeling be swallowed, managed, and never expressed. The accumulated Kegare had been building for decades and was growing faster than either tradition could contain. Both sides had different prescriptions for what to do about it. Both believed, with the specific confidence of institutions that had been right about everything else, that their approach would be sufficient.
On the same night in the 1850s, both traditions acted. The Composition coalition launched a coordinated strike across seven schools, targeting Projection infrastructure throughout Edo. The Manipulation schools, with partial intelligence on what was coming, moved first by hours, raising a city-scale barrier intended to compress Composition technique into inoperability. Both workings were operating on the same accumulated Kegare. Both were incompatible in ways neither tradition had the vocabulary to fully anticipate.
The two workings collided and what they produced had no name in either tradition's vocabulary. The practitioners at the centre described it the same way in testimonies taken years apart, without contact with each other: like silk, very close to the ear, tearing along a long straight line.
Edo's shadow peeled away and sank. Under-Tokyo was created. The cracks had opened, and the first Devils came through it within weeks.
The two traditions, standing in the wreckage of the thing they had done to the city together, eventually signed the Accord and became the framework that the Division was later built around. Some schools signed. Some did not. The ones that didn't became the Iron Compass and the Pale Office, the two factions who still operate outside the Division's authority, still holding the old grudge in one hand and their own interpretation of what happened that night in the other.
The Division's official position is that the Sundering was caused by both traditions operating without coordination and that the Accord exists to ensure it cannot happen again. This position is accurate as far as it goes. It does not go very far.
Follow the campaign to be notified the moment we launch.
It's a game that will make you feel like a badass shonen anime character kicking the piss out of grotesque Devils and Monsters in 199X Tokyo.
Why 1990s Tokyo? The bubble burst in 1991. A generation that organised its entire identity around institutional loyalty discovered the institution had lied. Tokyo compresses human spirit at a scale nothing else matches: millions of lives stacked in towers, packed into carriages, threaded through narrow schedules. The city teaches people to keep moving. The stronger the fear, the stronger the Devil. This is why Tokyo has a problem.
Night Shift: Devil Division is a standalone* TTRPG that uses the Draw Steel engine to deliver fast, punchy, grid-based combat built around combos, teamwork, positioning, and big signature techniques. Triumphs build momentum across operations, so pushing deeper makes you stronger and risks more, exactly like the best shonen arcs: the longer the night runs, the more dangerous everyone becomes. Momentum is each Operative's individual resource -- earned through the pressure of a fight and spent on their most powerful techniques. Adrenaline is the Squad's shared pool, fuelling clutch saves, last-second tactics, and cinematic reversals when things get desperate.
*You do not need a copy of Draw Steel to play this game.
Five Operative class categories. An arsenal of techniques to match.
Endogenics (NDO’s) Imprint Kegare into the body itself through Breath Styles: Water, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Stone, REDACTED, and the forms that branch from each; Serpent, Smoke, Sound, Mist and Metal to name a few.
Exokinetics (XO’s) Project Kegare into external forms: Blood Arts, Shikigami summoning, Exchange Rhythm, Frame-Step manipulation and REDACTED.
Baselines carry no Kegare, no pact, no Devil pattern. Zero spiritual noise. Division gear, human conditioning, and the tactical advantage of being invisible to anything that hunts by Signature.
Hybrids carry a Devil pattern threaded through a human nervous system. Weapon forms, animal aspects, abstract manifestations of contained power and a contested claim on their own identity.
Contractors build a roster of detained Devils through The Vault, trading payment in blood, labour, secrets, or worse for fragments of their pattern. Devil pact abilities embodying a range of phobias, fears, and bad juju.
Every operation follows the same escalating structure: Detect, Detain, Destroy.
You find the devil first; surveillance, informants, Devil Radar readings, field investigation. Then you make the call: detain it for the Vault, or put it down. Detainment is harder, more dangerous, and pays off in Vault Abilities, pact relationships, and Clearance. Destruction is clean but final.
Cinematic Mode covers the operational texture of the job; extractions, cordons, crowd management, cover maintenance, and investigation under pressure. Engagements are the tactical grid fights: alternating turns, positioning, forced movement, and techniques that build toward Momentum. Chase Sequences handle pursuit through Tokyo's streets, rooftops, train platforms, and the UT ZONE.
At the end of a successful operation, the squad converts Triumphs into XP and chooses to keep pushing or go On Leave. Triumphs make you stronger each Engagement, so delaying On Leave means more power and more risk. When the squad finally stands down, the 24-hour window opens: Stamina and Restorations fully restore, and each Operative picks a Leave Activity. Training Arcs advance techniques. Vault Visits open pact negotiations with detained Devils. Persona Style life sim activities: Ryokan trips, batting cages, konbini nights, karaoke, amusement parks whatever keeps an Operative functional.
Then the next call comes in.
The Operative Starter Set drops a brand new squad into 199X Tokyo on their first night in the Division.
The Shinjuku Operation. Pressure readings have been spiking across Kabukicho for three weeks. The Division's first response team didn't come back. Now it's your squad's problem. A self-contained campaign that takes Operatives from Level 0 (their first deployment, simplified mechanics, pre-generated characters) through to Level 3, by which point the full system is open and the squad knows exactly what they're doing. Level 0 exists for new players. Experienced players skip straight to Level 1 and hit the ground running.
Inside the box: large-format fold-out tactical maps, pre-generated Level 0 Operatives with individual reference guides, custom tokens, dice and resource trackers. Everything a squad needs to sit down and play the same night
Every Devil is born from a fear, a negative emotion, or a piece of bad juju that Tokyo has been swallowing for decades.
Common fears produce Mooks, disposable, pack-hunting threats that overwhelm through numbers. Cultural and primal fears produce Grade B and above: city-level disasters with their own agendas, sapience, and factional affiliations. Some Devils talk, bargain, and lie. Some have been waiting in the UT ZONE for decades, watching the city above them get worse.
Detainment turns an enemy into an ongoing relationship, with demands, loopholes, and consequences. A devil in The Vault is worth more than a dead one. The Division expects its pets.
Draw Steel is built for tactical, heroic, cinematic fantasy, and we are aiming that same tactical-cinematic core at a modern anime urban horror response unit. Expect clear combat roles, decisive movement on a grid, and abilities designed to create hard choices every round. No boring turns. No sloggy combat. You'll feel like a badass anime protagonist bashing devils through buildings, into ceilings and through the floor (leave them like Yamcha after the Saibamen).
We love Draw Steel and did extensive research on what people love about the system and books. We also looked hard at the sticking points (literally read every Reddit post and comment) and built something that addresses them.
Devils as recurring characters and assets, including Buddies -- detained Devils that fight alongside the squad
