Fate/hollow ataraxia

Fate/hollow ataraxia^[c][d] is a 2005 computer visual novel video game developed and published by Type-Moon. It is the second game in the Fate franchise following Fate/stay night (2004). It was first released in Japan for Windows in October 2005, and a port for PlayStation Vita was released in Japan in November 2014. A remastered version, Fate/hollow ataraxia Remastered was released worldwide on PC and Nintendo Switch in August 2025. The story takes place in Fuyuki City around eight months after the events of Fate/stay night and follows the time loop that the three main protagonists are stuck in.

Development for the game had occurred between early 2004 and late 2005 as Nasu designed a story centered around characters in a time loop, that allowed for new character interactions, daily life scenes, and the reveal of the mystery behind the Grail War. The game was introduced primarily as a fan-disc intended to deliver a more "happier" follow-up to Fate/stay night that allowed the characters to coexist peacefully after the heavy, often tragic events of the original visual novel. The game was well received based on sales and critics. Critical response to the game's narrative and cast was generally favorable.

Fate/hollow ataraxia is a visual novel that abandons the route-based system and traditional linear gameplay of its predecessor, Fate/stay night. Unlike the mainline Fate series of dark fantasy and action visual novels, the spin-off Fate/hollow ataraxia features a "lighter" tone through a slice of life approach,^[1] in an open-ended, time-loop structure, players experience recurring a four-day time loop in Fuyuki City from the perspectives of Shirou Emiya and Bazett Fraga McRemitz.^[2] The game allows players to explore and features an interactive aerial map of Fuyuki to allow players to choose specific scenes during morning, noon, and night. Players must investigate the mystery of the loop—marked by "!"—or explore comedy and slice-of-life character moments and scenes—labeled "New"—to deepen relationships with both returning and new characters. While the four-day cycle constantly resets, "flags" for progression are retained across loops, allowing players to gradually unlock new story events and eventually resolve the loop by prioritizing "new" content before moving on to key plot events. Throughout the game, multiple minigames can be unlocked—including a Hanafuda card game, "Operation Illya's Castle," and "Capsule Servant" in the PS Vita/Remastered versions—along with extras like "Eclipse" side stories.^[3]

The plot of Fate/hollow ataraxia takes place about eight months following the events of Fate/stay night in Fuyuki City. Bazett Fraga McRemitz, a member of the Mages' Association and participant in the Fifth Holy Grail War, wakes up on the fourth day of the Fifth Holy Grail war with a new servant, Avenger, and no memory of what happened to her beforehand. She and Avenger set off to fight and win the Holy Grail War. Meanwhile, Shirou Emiya lives a peaceful life with all of his friends from the Fifth Holy Grail War. After one of her experiments changes time and space, Rin Tohsaka leaves to fix things with the Mages' Association in England. The time loop occurs due to Rin Tohsaka's tampering with her Jewel Sword that inadvertently merged all potential timelines of the Holy Grail War. The Servants sense a new danger while dark creatures appear soon afterward. Emiya finds himself frequently meeting Caren Ortensia and suspects something is wrong. He realizes that Bazett and him are in a time loop which begun on the fourth day of the Fifth Holy Grail War. Each time they die or survive, Emiya and McRemitz wake up on the first day of the loop, essentially restarting the process. They fight to discover the truth and end the loop. It is revealed that Avenger was using Shirou's body as a vessel, while also being shown as the one responsible for the time loop.

Avenger is revealed as the being who corrupted the Holy Grail in the previous Holy Grail War up until he was released when Shirou and Saber destroyed the Grail at the end of the Fifth Holy Grail War. Having become a weak Grail with the destruction of its physical vessel and his soul separated of Greater Grail in process, his spirit came across a dying Bazett and responded to her wish to live. He created the time loop inside of Bazett's mind and replicated the characters in this dream world, while the real Shirou and his friends are living peacefully in the outside world. After learning the truth from Caren, Avenger and Bazett destroy the Grail to put an end to the loop. Bazett awakens from her coma in the real world and Avenger returns to the void. He revives the participants of the Fifth Holy Grail War who died more than half a year ago excluding Kotomine Kirei. In the epilogue, Bazett quits the Magic Association and becomes a freelancer. She visits Shirou to ask for a temporary stay at his house until she finds a job. Which is later followed by Caren's request to stay until the church's renovation is completed.

After the release of the Fate/stay night game, there were no plans for a sequel. As Nasu was content with the completion of the story. He felt Shirou Emiya's character arc and the Holy Grail War as fully concluded within the original three routes. The concept of hollow ataraxia had started with author Kinoko Nasu's idea to merge the three routes of Fate/stay night into a cohesive story.^[4] Nasu began writing the plot, everything from the Holy Grail War on the first night until the completion of the story. He noted that while he wrote the story of hollow ataraxia, daily writing and editing was left to sub-writers to work on.^[4] Development for the game had begun following the release of its predecessor in January 2004. hollow ataraxia was first released for PC in Japan on October 28, 2005.^[5][6] The game also was ported to PlayStation Vita by game developer HuneX in 2014, adding full-voice acting,^[7] among other enhancements.^[8][9] In 2024, Fate/hollow ataraxia Remastered was announced for release on the Nintendo Switch and Steam.^[5] It would be ported to be Steam and Nintendo Switch in August 2025 with English and Chinese translations.^[10][11]

There have been many sets of manga anthologies bases on the series produced by different companies and drawn by a multitude of different artists. The first volume of the earliest anthology series was released by Ichijinsha with the title Fate/Hollow Ataraxia Anthology Comic, on January 7, 2006, under their DNA Media Comics imprint; the fifteenth volume in the series was released on August 25, 2008.^[12] Two anthology series were then released by Kadokawa, the first was Fate/hollow Ataraxia ~ Comic la carte, released on January 10, 2006.^[13] The second, Fate/hollow ataraxia Comic a la carte ~Happy Life hen~, was released on May 24, 2006.^[14] Another two anthology series were then released by Enterbrain. Fate/hollow ataraxia Anthology Comic was released between January 30, 2006, and May 25, 2007, in nine volumes under their Magi-Cu Comics imprint.^[15] A 4-koma series was later published by Enterbrain between December 25, 2007, and December 25, 2008, in six volumes.^[16] In 2013, a Fate/hollow ataraxia manga illustrated by Medori and published by Kadokawa began serializing.

A soundtrack to the game, entitled Fate/hollow ataraxia Original Sound Track was published by Geneon Entertainment on November 23, 2005.^[17] The single "Hollow" was released by Type-Moon on October 28, 2005.^[18]

Fate/hollow ataraxia was regarded as one of the top selling visual novels of 2005.^[19] In Japan, the PSV version sold 53,979 copies within its first week, ranking at fourth place amongst all Japanese software sales for the November 24–30, 2014 week of sales charts.^[20] The Steam release had an estimated over 60,000 players by March 2026.

• Type-Moon official Japanese homepage for Fate/hollow ataraxia(in Japanese)
• Fate/hollow ataraxia at The Visual Novel Database