Punishing: Gray Raven is a 3D online free-to-play action role-playing game for Android and iOS, developed and published by Kuro Game using the Unity Engine. It was first released in China on December 5, 2019, and a year later, on December 4, 2020, in Japan. The global release came out on July 16, 2021.
Punishing: Gray Raven has players control a squad of up to three characters, known as "Constructs", against various enemies. Storytelling is presented in a visual novel format, while combat is a hack and slash action-based, with the player fighting enemies in real-time in multiple stages. Punishing: Gray Raven is similar to Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. Different colored "Pings" can be obtained during combat, which will fire off different skills. Chaining 3 Pings with the same color will execute a powerful version of that skill. Players may also evade enemy attacks, which will trigger a bullet time effect upon successful evasion, allowing the player to land additional hits on the enemy. Evading attacks will consume stamina, which prevents players from freely dodging all the time.
Constructs can be strengthened by levelling up and promoting them, levelling weapons and equipping gears. Players can unlock additional Constructs by advancing the story, and more Constructs can be obtained via a gacha mechanic and in-game events. In-game currencies can be obtained through in-app purchases and by playing the game, which is used to obtain Constructs and equipment through the gacha system. A pity system ensures that the player will receive rare items after a set number of pulls.
The game also features a housing system in the form of Dormitories. Players may decorate and move in Constructs to their dorms to improve their mood. Constructs can also be assigned chores to obtain in-game materials.
The game's story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by Corrupted cybernetic enemies caused by the Punishing Virus. The Punishing Virus was created during humanity's first zero-point energy nuclear reactor. When it escapes and spreads along the wind currents of Earth's atmosphere following an explosion, the cybernetic pathogen proceeds to kill humans and infect machines, causing them to seek to destroy anything with human consciousness mindlessly. Humanity thus sees no other option but to escape into space, where survivors live aboard the space colony Babylonia. To reclaim their lost planet, humans devise a way to modify their bodies into virus-resistant combat cyborgs: the Reconstructed Soldiers, or in its short form, the Constructs. The player takes on the role as the Commandant of an elite squad of Constructs known as Gray Raven. The player will lead the squad to fight against the Corrupted and other opposing forces to retake the planet.