[4][5][6] The player follows twelve youths who are killed by an explosion in modern-day Tokyo[7] and find themselves on the fantasy-like planet of Protolexa.

[8] The game was first announced in July 2015, as a collaboration between Spike Chunsoft and tri-Ace in a fourteen-page article in Weekly Famitsu.

[6] Other key staff for the game include character designer Mino Taro of Konami's Love Plus series, and music composer Motoi Sakuraba, composer for tri-Ace's Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean series.

[6] Aksys Games acquired the rights to localize Exist Archive and released it in North America on October 18, 2016.

[14] Famitsu gave both the Vita and PS4 versions of the game a 33/40 rating, with the four reviewers giving the title scores of 8/8/8/9.