Adol Christin and Dogi arrive in Gllia Erdlingen, part of the Romun Empire, following the events of Ys 7. Despite their caution, Romun soldiers discover Adol, knock him unconscious, and imprison him in the ancient fortress city of Balduq, accusing the red-haired adventurer of interfering with the imperial naval fleet. That’s just the start of Adol’s troubles.
While Adol tries to escape, the mysterious Aprilis forces him into joining the Monstrums. It’s a rag-tag group of resistance fighters, some with noble intentions and others with barely restrained psychopathic tendencies.
While their motives are far from unified, the Monstrums exist to oppose the Romun Empire and particularly its use of Balduq as a punishment to silence critics.
They’re not alone either. Some of Balduq’s citizens resent the Romuns as well and offer their assistance, including bar manager Chante. He and his assistant Yufa let the Monstrums use their bar as an informal base of sorts, where Adol can take on new quests among other things.
Ys 9 takes place directly after Ys 7 and ties up loose threads from all previous Ys games. Despite the story building on eight games’ worth of narrative material, however, Ys 9 is still newcomer friendly.
Ys 9: Monstrum Nox releases February 2, 2021, for PlayStation 4 and summer 2021 for Nintendo Switch and PC. Meanwhile, if you’re new to the series, Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana is a pretty good place to start while we wait for Ys 9.
