Ellie Myers arrives in New York with a straightforward ambition: she wants a career as a jazz singer. The complication is that Ellie is also a magus, and a mysterious incident quickly brings her into a hidden struggle involving other magick users and a shadowy mafia organization.

There she meets Ilya Jones, leader of the Seekers. Ellie values freedom and resists authority; Ilya has been raised around discipline and responsibility. They do not begin as natural friends.

Konami is treating the period as part of the worldbuilding

The 1920s setting gives Rhapsody in Scarlet its most immediate visual identity. Konami says the team studied New York's architecture, automobiles, clothing and nightlife, including the speakeasies created by Prohibition.

The developers also conducted on-site research and collected historical references. All of that realism then has to coexist with beasts, magick and a hidden community operating beneath ordinary city life.

It is a useful tension. The historical city was already changing rapidly through cars, radio, nightlife and shifting social roles. Konami is inserting a second transformation underneath it, one the general population apparently cannot see.

Jazz is supposed to drive more than the soundtrack

Ellie's interest in music is tied directly to the setting, but Konami also wants jazz to shape the wider energy of the game. Combat is fast and combo-driven, while the music leans into the same sense of movement.

The opening theme Cool/Hot is performed by Japanese jazz group SOIL & "PIMP" SESSIONS featuring singer-songwriter Emi Meyer. It is a fittingly aggressive choice for an action game rather than a polite piece of period dressing.

Ellie and Ilya carry the central relationship

Cherami Leigh voices Ellie in English, with Hannah Grace playing Ilya. Their opposing values give the story an obvious early source of friction, while Konami has already indicated that repeated battles will gradually turn that hostility into mutual understanding.

The destination of that arc is not much of a mystery. How convincingly Rhapsody in Scarlet gets there will matter more.

A genuinely new Konami world

There is another reason the announcement stands out. Rhapsody in Scarlet is an original property at a time when many of Konami's most visible game projects have involved established names from its catalogue.

The game is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC through Steam. Its release date remains unannounced.