On a hot summer day in 1983, a transfer student named Maebara Keiichi comes to a peaceful rural village in Hinamizawa. There he befriends his classmates Rena, Mion, Rika, and Satoko. Just as Keiichi is beginning to assimilate into simple rural life, he stumbles upon the dark history of Hinamizawa - every year for the past four years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day of the Watanagashi Festival.