Class of '09 is a visual novel video game series developed and primarily written by Max "SBN3" Field and published by Wrath Club for personal computers. Field, who also voices several of the male characters, markets the series as an "anti-visual novel" and "interactive sitcom." The story follows self-proclaimed sociopath and nihilistic high school student Nicole (voiced by Elsie Lovelock) and her best friend Jecka (voiced by Kayli Mills) across a fictionalized version of Springfield and the broader Washington metropolitan area from the fall of 2007 to the spring of 2009. The series is structured around branching narrative paths with multiple endings and unlockable cutscenes. It blends black comedy, shock humor, and psychological horror with depictions of sexual abuse, drug abuse, white nationalism, and institutional failure, all within the aesthetic framework of late-2000s American suburban life.
The first game, Class of '09, was released as freeware for itch.io on October 8, 2020, with a commercial release to Linux, macOS, and Windows on June 10, 2021. The second game, Class of '09: The Re-Up, was released on June 1, 2023, while the third and final game, Class of '09: The Flip Side, was released on September 23, 2024. The first two games received generally positive reviews, particularly for their voice acting and comedic writing, though the third game was met with a significantly more negative response from both critics and the series' fanbase.
Gameplay consists primarily of listening to fully voiced dialogue and making periodic narrative choices. Every line of dialogue in the trilogy is voice-acted, a rarity for visual novels, particularly those produced in English. Player agency varies considerably across the trilogy: the first game features 15 endings reached through frequent choice points, while the third game has only 5 endings and substantially longer non-interactive sequences between decisions, a structural change that drew criticism from players accustomed to the earlier games' pacing.
In the first two games, the player controls Nicole, who introduces herself as a sociopath in the opening monologue. Nicole is a transient teenager whose mother has been through multiple divorces, resulting in frequent moves across states and school districts. After her estranged father's suicideâÂÂwhose note blames NicoleâÂÂshe arrives at a new high school in the Washington metropolitan area, where the series takes place. In-universe, the school is referred to only as "LHS." Exterior shots are modeled after Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, and most in-game text messages carry the area code 703.
The first game follows Nicole's junior year beginning in September 2007. Through branching paths, the player navigates Nicole's encounters with sexually predatory faculty members, a white nationalist photography teacher attempting to recruit students, a school counselor who behaves inappropriately toward female students, substance abuse, and the social dynamics of the school. Nicole's responses to these situations range from strategic manipulation to self-destructive impulsivity depending on player choices. The game uses a T-Mobile Sidekick as a choice-selection device, presented as pop-up text messages during key scenes. Most routes end in outcomes that are bleak, violent, or darkly absurd. The game does not offer a conventionally "good" ending.
The second installment, released June 1, 2023, opens with the declaration "IT'S NOT A SEQUEL JUST THE RE-UP" and is set in the fall of 2008 during Nicole's senior year. It introduces a second set of largely standalone stories that expand the supporting cast, giving fuller characterization to figures like Ari, Megan, Emily, Karen, and Kelly who had only minor or unnamed roles in the first game. The game features 13 opening scenarios that converge at a common decision point, with route restrictions built in to prevent certain plot inconsistencies. Routes are generally longer than those in the first game.
The third game shifts perspective to Jecka as the protagonist, following her during the same 2007âÂÂ2009 timeframe. It depicts Jecka's home life with her abusive, divorce-embittered father, her coerced sexual relationship with her history teacher Mr. Katz, and her involvement in foot-fetish sex work as a means of paying household bills. Nicole appears as a supporting character, though her portrayal here is notably more antagonistic toward Jecka than in prior entries, a characterization shift that divided the fanbase. The T-Mobile Sidekick is replaced with a Motorola Razr. The game has 5 endings, the fewest in the series, and features substantially longer cutscenes between choice points.
The Class of '09 trilogy depicts a high school environment in which virtually every adult authority figure is predatory, corrupt, incompetent, or some combination thereof, and the institutional structures that are supposed to protect studentsâÂÂschool administration, guidance counseling, law enforcementâÂÂactively enable harm. The series treats sexual abuse, drug abuse, depression, self-harm, suicide, bullying, white nationalism, school shootings, sex work, and misogyny as recurring subjects.
The series' tonal approach to this material has been a persistent point of discussion. The games use black comedy and shock humor to frame scenarios involving child sexual abuse, coerced relationships between students and faculty, and sexual exploitation, an approach that some reviewers have found effective as social satire and others have found tonally inconsistent or exploitative. The content advisory website DoesTheDogDie.com notes that the first game features "rampant mentions of sexual abuse" and that while "no abuser is forgiven, the satirical writing has the characters acting very lax towards it." This tensionâÂÂbetween satirizing the normalization of abuse and potentially reproducing it through comedic framingâÂÂis a defining feature of the series.
Field has stated that the games' more serious themes are drawn from real experiences he heard about, including a social media post from a young woman who described a hospitalization after an overdose. He has also cited real-world observations of inappropriate teacher-student dynamics: "a lot of teachers will flirt with girl students. A lot of it is stuff you don't realize is weird when you're a kid, but as an adult you realize how messed up it is." The degree to which these sourced experiences are handled with the gravity they warrant, versus being repurposed as material for comedic shock value, varies across the trilogy and has been debated among players and critics.
The review site Natalie.TF characterizes the series as being principally about Nicole's trauma-driven self-destruction, while The Refined Geek describes the trilogy's world as one in which every character is dysfunctional. The YattaTachi review characterizes the experience as "a damn good, feel bad time."
The Flip Side in particular drew criticism for its extended depictions of Jecka's exploitationâÂÂincluding her coerced relationship with Mr. Katz and her foot-fetish sex workâÂÂwhich some players and reviewers felt crossed from satire into uncomfortable spectacle. Multiple routes culminate in foot-fetish scenarios, a recurring element that many players interpreted as reflecting the developer's personal fixation rather than serving a clear satirical or narrative purpose.
The original Class of '09 received generally positive reviews, with particular praise directed at its voice acting, comedic writing, and willingness to engage with taboo subject matter within the visual novel format. The 3rd-Strike review noted that the experience became progressively more depressing as routes were explored. The Refined Geek observed that the game's commitment to making every character repellent was both its defining quality and a potential limitation.
The Re-Up received a similarly positive reception, with reviewers noting its expanded cast and longer routes as improvements on the original's framework.
The Flip Side received a markedly more negative response. It holds a "Mixed" rating on Steam, the lowest in the franchise, compared to the "Overwhelmingly Positive" ratings of its predecessors. The Mary Sue called it "a weak ending to a beloved trilogy," criticizing the reduced player agency, the tonal shift in Nicole's characterization, and the extended depictions of Jecka's abuse. The Natalie.TF review found the game's longer, more linear structure placed greater narrative weight on each route, and that three of the five endings failed to deliver satisfying conclusions, with one killing off a fan-favorite character for no discernible purpose beyond shock value. Multiple user reviews on Steam and Metacritic objected to the prominence of foot-fetish content, with one Metacritic user review describing the game as "outright torture porn and a lot of sexed up fetishes" lacking the franchise's earlier comedic core.
An animated promotional short, Class of '09: Give Me a Fry, was released on October 23, 2023. A 12-minute animated pilot episode, Class of '09: The Anime, was released on December 14, 2024. A second animated short, Class of '09: Lunch Table Beats, was released on March 13, 2026. The animated adaptations largely abandon the games' psychological horror elements and graphic subject matter in favor of a slice of life animated sitcom tone, retaining character archetypesâÂÂsuch as Kylar's aggression and Emily's drug dealingâÂÂwhile stripping them of the darker contexts that define those characters in the games.
Apple's App Store declined to host the series due to its content, a decision Field has publicly criticized, noting the inconsistency of allowing games depicting graphic violence (such as ') while refusing a visual novel depicting issues faced by teenage girls.