Chaos; Head Noah sees a massive increase in player count after the CoZ fan patch

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If they don’t, we’ll do it ourselves.

The Visual Novel Chaos; Head Zero is seeing a monumental increase in the number of concurrent players on Steam, and thanks to the work of a few dedicated fans.

Following the release of a patch for the game on February 2nd, Chaos;Head Noah’s total number of active Steam players increased from 28 to 238 Surpassing players immersed in the game at launch in October 2022.

The patch fixes a number of performance issues and adds previously unavailable features like uncensored segments, an alternate translation, and more. However, this update for the game was not created and distributed by the game’s publisher, Spike Chunsoft. It was instead offered by the Community of Zero fan group, who edited and produced the patch as a fan project to bring a game loved by the group up to date.

“CHAOS;HEAD NOAH: the stunning, unforgettable opening show for one of the most popular visual novel franchises out there – the science-adventure franchise,” the group wrote in a post on their website announcing the patch’s completion. “It is the definitive installment of the CHAOS;HEAD story, featuring a series of intriguing character routes that expand on the original and its characters. And we’ve been working on it for… a very long time. And it’s finally here.”

Twitter user Kars drew attention to this player spike and the fact that it was caused by fans taking action instead of Spike Chunsoft. This, in turn, has sparked debates about how important fan efforts are to the success of the series and how Spike Chunsoft should approach the issue going forward.

Chaos; Head Noah is currently available for PC via GoG and Steam, as well as for Nintendo Switch. For more information on visual novels, see our related articles below.