CICADAMATA Story & Characters: Joyeuse & FAWN-A2

What the game states outright

This page separates official text (Steam store copy, screenshot captions, achievement names, patch notes) from community reading. CICADAMATA tells its story in fragments — terminals, murmurs and interstitials — so the certain core is small and everything else is interpretation.

The setup, per the store page: you are “deployed into CASCADE under the ‘INITIATION SEVEN’ CORE retrieval protocol”, enlisted as a CICADA. The tone is dissociative by design: “this is who you are now. disconnect. obligations no longer bind you.”

The cast, sourced

• FAWN-A2 — the CICADA unit you play. Official screenshot captions name the player character directly (“CICADA FAWN-A2 preparing a charged shot…”). The store page frames becoming FAWN-A2 as the game’s premise.
• JOYEUSE — your weapon, and more than a weapon. Screenshots show charged shots “using JOYEUSE”; the store page gives her the game’s most quoted line: “i am joyeuse. i am not the weapon that failed. i have given everything to masters who forgot my name.” The early achievement + I AM JOYEUSE (“who will you be?”) and the campaign-ending + LOVE YOU TOO suggest the FAWN/JOYEUSE relationship is the emotional spine. (Joyeuse is also the name of Charlemagne’s legendary sword — and Hauteclere, below, follows the same naming tradition.)
• THE WHITE RABBIT — the game’s guiding motif (“follow the white rabbit”, “down that rabbit hole”; a Sphere 2 level is literally named RABBIT HOLE, and CICADA level 50 awards + WHITE RABBIT). The Alice in Wonderland framing is explicit — the store page calls the setting “this {WONDERLAND}”.
• HAUTECLERE — the Sphere 5 target: the sphere-clear achievement is + I KILLED HAUTECLERE. Like Joyeuse, Hauteclere is a named sword of medieval legend (Olivier’s, in the Song of Roland) — two legendary blades on opposite sides.
• AEGIS — referenced in the achievement + FOR AEGIS (“and all CICADAS who follow”) and in the recommended-spec flavor text (“AEGIS-017 receiver”). Demo-era analysis identified AEGIS as the AI that drafts Cicadas. Treat the details as community reading, not official.
• AUGUST / ST. SANVEI — names carried by achievements (+ FOR AUGUST, + ST. SANVEI). Their roles are not officially explained; murmur hunters associate St. Sanvei with the sphere murmur track it names.

About the “angel” question

“cicadamata angel” is a common search. The white, winged-silhouette machine design on the game’s key art is the likely referent, but no official source names an angel character as of August 27, 2026 — we are not going to assert one. If terminal text confirms it, this section gets updated.

Where the rest of the story is

In the collectibles: terminals carry the lore text and murmurs the audio. The ending sequence is gated behind clearing Sphere 6 (+ THIS FACE COSTS EXTRA, then + LOVE YOU TOO and + ZONED” — “and that’s the last we heard from her”).