The story takes place in the afterlife and focuses on Otonashi, a boy who lost his memories of his life after dying.

1st Beat ranked as the best-selling PC game sold in Japan for the time of its release, and charted in the national top 50 twice more after that.

is set in a world after death,[1] which acts as a limbo where the dead learn to give up any lingering attachments from life before passing on.

The text in the game is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Otonashi is talking to, over background art.

Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites.

[3] Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options to choose from, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made.

The SSS fight against Kanade Tachibana, also referred to as Angel, the student council president of the afterlife school whose responsibilities require her to suppress the team's disruptive activities.

anime television series in June 2010, Jun Maeda mentioned during a lecture at Kyoto University in November 2010 that he started writing the scenario for a possible video game adaptation.

[5] Maeda continued to develop the project, although he prioritized other work he was involved in at the time, which led to the game's announcement in September 2013.

's story; Baba thought it would take at least five years to complete if they waited to release it as a single game.

Baba also felt that an overly long play time could be avoided by dividing the game into multiple volumes.

[8] Several other artists worked under Na-Ga's supervision to initially decrease the release time between subsequent volumes,[6] including: Nazuki Fuei, Yūnon Nagayama, Juri Sakuraba and Falco Suzuki.

[8] Much of the focus on 1st Beat is on a large amount of CG artwork, which has about as many CGs as Clannad according to Baba, which he found odd.

Heaven's Door released in December 2016, Maeda revealed that subsequent volumes had been cancelled, with the content that had been planned for future games used as a basis for the manga Angel Beats!

[8] The limited edition came bundled with a 36-page official guide book titled Shinda Sekai Sensen Katsudō Hōkokusho (死んだ世界戦線活動報告書, Afterlife Battlefront Activity Report), a music album titled Holy, a CD containing exclusive recordings of the Internet radio show Angel Beats!

SSS Radio, a rubber coaster, three rare cards from the mobile game Angel Beats!

[20] The music featured in the visual novel is taken from two albums and two singles originally released for the anime: the Angel Beats!

[21] Those who pre-ordered the limited edition of 1st Beat received an exclusive single titled "Million Star" by Girls Dead Monster.

An album of piano arrangements of the game's soundtrack titled Holy came bundled with the limited edition release of 1st Beat on June 26, 2015.

1st Beat ranked four times in the top ten in national PC game pre-orders in Japan.

1 game sold on Getchu.com, a major redistributor of visual novel and domestic anime products, during the month of its release,[27] and at No.