The first playthrough forces the canon ending. Here is what unlocks after it, how ending points work, and what still takes several runs.
Sengoku Rance Endings: How Many and How to Reach Them
Sengoku Rance has six story routes, but only four are endings you can clear the game on — and a brand-new save is locked to one of them. What people also file under "endings" (the progress gallery, character clears, the diary counter) is a separate layer that pays out score instead.
Every figure below comes from the player-maintained AliceSoft Wiki, built against the 2006 Japanese original (v1.04) and the MangaGamer 2019 English release. None of it is re-verified against the 2026-10-01 Steam build.
The short answer: four clearable endings
| Route | What unlocks it | Winnable? | Route points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official History (True Route) | Default on any fresh save | Yes | +5 |
| Kenshin Route | Conquer Uesugi + Ashikaga before the Honnoji lock | Yes | +5 |
| Isoroku Route | Recruit Isoroku Yamamoto, finish her second event before lock | Yes | +5 |
| Ran Route | Houjou recruitment chain before any route is forced | Yes | +5 |
| Monkeyslayer Route | Bonus "Can kill Toukichirou" (10 points) | Yes | 0 |
| Archfiend Route | MangaGamer-era only | No — entry ends the run | 0 |
So the count is four if you mean endings you can finish on, six if you mean entries in the progress record. Archfiend is a trap route: reaching it is an instant loss and it pays nothing. Monkeyslayer only arrived in the 1.04 patch, which is why pre-2017 guides never mention it.
Why a fresh save cannot leave the canon ending
Route entry runs on gourds. Xavier was sealed in eight gourds, each entrusted to a clan; break one and it is delivered to him. Break five and a route is forced on you. On a first game — any save the game has not beaten — the fifth gourd always resolves to Official History, whatever difficulty you picked.
Everything else about route entry is timing:
| Turn | Gourds you should have broken | What happens otherwise |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 1 | First gourd breaks anyway, usually exactly on turn 15 |
| 30 | 2 | A start-of-turn event breaks one |
| 50 | 3 | Same, priority Takeda > Mouri > Houjou > Uesugi |
| 70 | 4 | Same |
| 90 | 5 | Same, and a route is pushed on you |
The non-canon routes are IF routes, enterable only on a second game, and their conditions must be finished before the Honnoji Temple Incident fires — that event locks route choice for the rest of the run, which is why experienced players build a save deliberately.
Fan-patch walkthroughs from the 2009 English patch era predate the 1.04 content and often list only three routes, plus old terminology — "House" not "Clan", "Free For All" not National Mode. Check the Steam version differences guide first.
Route by route: how to reach each ending
Kenshin is the cheapest unlock: conquer Uesugi and Ashikaga before the Honnoji lock and the route offers itself when the fifth gourd breaks. The cost is conquest order, not trickery — see the routes and clan order guide. One objective is permanently unavailable here: Slay Orochi cannot be completed on Kenshin, so it is never your points run.
Isoroku needs two steps in order — capture Isoroku Yamamoto, then complete her follow-up event — both before route entry locks. The capture runs through the ordinary prison loop, so use the recruitment guide if persuasion points are the problem.
Ran is the one players miss most. The chain starts in the Houjou section's recruitment step and must be run without being in a first game, without already being in a route, and without five gourds broken. Miss it and that save has no Ran route.
Monkeyslayer is gated by spend: "Can kill Toukichirou" costs 10 points in the Second Game Bonuses shop. Archfiend is MangaGamer-era content the wiki marks as absent elsewhere, and entering it ends the game.
Endings are not gallery unlocks: what the game tracks
The "ending gallery" is the Game Progress Info screen, and it does not exist during your first playthrough.
- Unlocked from your second game onward, as an ordinary province command in every province you own.
- Viewing it needs at least 1 action fan but spends none.
- It only updates after you finish a game — checking mid-run shows last run's data.
- There are no Steam achievements to pair it with — see why the game has no achievements.
| Block | Entries recorded |
|---|---|
| Route Completion | True, Kenshin, Isoroku, Ran, Monkeyslayer, Archfiend |
| Difficulty | 1 Star, 2 Star, 5 Star clears |
| All Nation Mode | Any clan clear in National Mode, plus Oshu and Cairo challenge battles |
| Others | Fewest turns to finish, diary record, fewest turns in National Mode |
Only your highest score is retained across runs.
What still takes several runs: the completion objectives
Objectives show up on the map screen (F5). They are explicitly not required to clear the game — each is worth score, and score buys your next run's bonuses.
| Objective | Points | Availability notes |
|---|---|---|
| Slay Orochi | 10 | Cannot be completed on the Kenshin Route |
| Beat the Youkai King | 10 | Blocked if you buy the Dokuganryu clan bonus |
| Character clears | 2 each | Only counts characters still in your Commander List at the end |
| Six Great Treasures | 10 | Impossible on a first game — needs Inukai |
| 30,000 total troops | 10 | Slow, gold-heavy, good second-run target |
| Diary counter objective | 10 | The one most affected by the Steam changes (below) |
Two entries carry real weight. Character clears pay per surviving commander, so clear exactly the roster you intend to finish with — 20 survivors is 40 points riding on nobody dying. And the Youkai King objective is self-blocking: the Dokuganryu clan bonus hands you that clan's commanders from turn one and forfeits the 10 points.
How ending points actually work
- First game starts at 60 points and loses 1 per turn. Finishing at 0 is expected, not failure.
- Every completed objective adds points back, and only your highest score counts going forward.
- Starting score scales with difficulty: Standard 60 / 1 Star 120 / 2 Stars 150 / 5 Stars 200 — see the difficulty guide.
One lever most players never touch is the Ending Points passive skill: "At the end of the game, +2 points for every remaining character with this skill." Any unit can have it, but only in an empty fifth skill slot — twenty upgraded commanders is 40 points of end-of-run score, which is why 1 Star beats Standard for a low-scoring first NG+. The 2009 fan patch called the same skill "End Game Points".
Your Second Game Bonuses budget is your best score plus +5 per each of the four scoring routes; buying everything costs 315 points. See the New Game Plus guide.
- First game, Standard. Take the True Route, learn the map, expect 0 points.
- NG+ 1 — Kenshin. Cheapest unlock, pure conquest: +5 points.
- NG+ 2 — Isoroku. Capture the commander, clear her second event, both before Honnoji locks you out.
- NG+ 3 — Ran. Start from a deliberate save and walk the Houjou chain first.
- NG+ 4 — Monkeyslayer. Only once you can afford the 10-point bonus.
- Then score runs. 1 Star, stack Ending Points, clear only the roster you will still hold.
What the 2026 Steam version changes
The Steam build is the censored re-release: its mature-content description cites "non-explicit sexual content", and Kagura Games files it under a Censored category. A player-maintained wiki page on those differences still carries an unfinished-construction banner, but describes the diary objective and its counter item being reworded and several portraits replaced. That makes the "grind 300 diary entries" chapter of every pre-2026 walkthrough suspect on Steam. Route structure, gourd timing and score maths show no such evidence of change, but they remain community-documented rather than Steam-verified.
Official source: Sengoku Rance on Steam — appid 3867170, released October 1, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a true ending that only appears after several playthroughs? Not as a separate ending. Official History is both the default first-game ending and one of the four scoring routes. What takes extra runs is the other three routes and the objectives.
Can I get a different ending on my first playthrough? No. A fresh save always resolves the fifth gourd to Official History, and the route menu is not offered on a first game.
Sources
Route, gourd, objective and epilogue data from the AliceSoft Wiki: Walkthrough, Objectives, Game Progress Info, Second Game Bonuses, Epilogue. Enemy scaling cross-checked against the GameFAQs guide by KrossRoads (MangaGamer-era).
Related
More Sengoku Rance Guides
Dungeons are your main level-up source. 19 of them, each gated behind a specific commander or story beat, worth up to 18 party levels.
Rough hours for the mandatory first route, what forces a second playthrough, and why 100% takes far longer than the first clear. Numbers, not vibes.
Capture odds are a 1-in-n roll, and n is 1, 2 or 5. The two skills that set it, the prison cap that blocks it, and how to raise the odds.
Action fans cap your whole turn. The thresholds are 50, 160 and 260 - here is how to reach each one and what to pick on the way.
Five item colours, five different rules. Learn the coding once and you can read every drop, shop entry and transfer item at a glance.
There is no Steam Workshop for this game. What the well-known external total conversion adds, and what to check before you install anything.
Points come from your best score plus 5 per winnable route. What to buy first, the roster cap that can kill your units, and National Mode.
Negotiation stat, prison space, NP cost and the ronin pool. Why your scout command is greyed out and how to unblock it.