The central story of the game is centered on the idea of "revenge" and takes a darker and more serious direction compared to the previous titles in the series.

The demon emperor Void Dark devastates numerous Netherworlds after coming to power, with the help of an army of over one million soldiers known as The Lost.

[1] Disgaea 5 takes place in a universe with many Netherworlds, each of which is ruled by an Overlord who has a unique Overload ability, which can also be used in battle as a special attack.

Lieze's brother Void, who has the power to steal Overloads, became jealous of Killia's family bonds, and believed he should be the heir to the Ultimate Demon Technique.

Killia and Zeroken attempt to use the Final Skill to purge the evil from Bloodis, and unknowingly succeed, but Goldion keeps this a secret in order to protect them from Void Dark.

She goes berserk due to the uncontrolled amount of dark power inside her, but Killia saves her by combining the Ultimate Skill with the Overloads of his friends.

[4] New features include the display of resistance and affiliation statistics when units on the battlefield are highlighted, and a revenge system that is triggered when party members are fallen.

[6] The development team initially considered a multi-platform release including the PlayStation 3, however decided to create a game "which could only be done on the PS4 platform.

[2] The game is produced by Sohei Niikawa, with the character designs by Takehito Harada and music composed by Tenpei Sato.

[10] A limited edition was also announced, which included a collector's box, two-disc soundtracks, hard cover art book and several other items.

[13] The unclear reasons for the delay, as well as the removal of all network features, including the Strategy Assembly and Netherworld Edit Shop, again due to unspecified "irreconcilable platform differences", resulted in the release being called a "months-long debacle" by Kotaku.