It is a video game. However, it isn't like most visual novels where there are multiple endings. Mirror Dungeon events tend to have different outcomes based on your choices, but those are all short-term effects.
While not in the game, there was an online novel covering the background of two characters that could be considered the main cast. One of these characters was in an orphanage before the other adopted them.
While we have not yet encountered it in the story at the time of me posting this comment (after Canto IV, before Canto V), the official promotion video came with a list of content warnings that included Domestic Violence.
In Canto IV, a farm animal suffers an implied death during a black screen. During the final boss fight, dead animals can be seen lying in the background.
Not slapped, however there is one scene where a character is beaten up for making a big mistake. This character is coincidentally a woman, which isn't related
A character in Canto IV is routinely given drugs, and eventually stops taking them. Additional lore also suggests that N. Corp employees are drugged via food.
While it is not, a common interpretation of a specific scene in Canto 8 is that it is an allegory to rape/loss of body autonomy. (SPOILERS BELOW)
Many characters die due to monsters forcefully planting their offspring into their bodies and the offspring are seen literally tearing themselves out of the "host's" abdomen. Adults and children are all victims to this. While, again, this is just an interpretation of the scene, the fact that it could be seen as an allegory for rape is enough for me to leave a comment. Parts of the fandom also tend to make jokes about this scene in particular, so be warned. (However, I did vote 'no' due to it not being explicitly stated.)
It isn't on screen but it's heavily implied because of a prior canon event tw for mild description below and maybe spoilers
(lobotomy corporation branches locked down, burying the remaining employees alive, but this is an event that has existed for all of the current canon from the first game to limbus company)
A cannibal restaurant exists in-lore, although it is only mentioned heavily in identities from the District 23 backstreets, a.k.a. the R.B. identities. Despite being event identities, these will be available in future gacha pools.
There is self harm through cutting in a scene in the Canto V dungeon, right after the first Abnormality fight. This same act is depicted in Heathcliff's 000 identity called "Pequod Harpooneer"
In Canto V, an enemy called the Whale of the Porous Hand appears, which summons minions through the pores in its hand. It's somewhat visually reminiscent of a Surinam toad.
One of the EGO Gifts that can be collected in Mirror Dungeon runs is a box cutter with a razor blade, implied to have been used for harm (Rusted Cutting Knife).
While clowns have not appeared in the game *yet* as of this comment, written between Canto IV.5 and Canto V, a list of content warnings provided by the developers includes clowns.
The only thing comparable to cops in my opinion are the K Corp Agents and possibly the security guards in Canto 2, and they're not portrayed in a positive light.
In Intervallo IV-1, Timekilling Time, most of main cast is arrested for tax evasion and put in jail until a small group of theirs can solve a Distortion case to clear their debt. This is mostly played for laughs.
While not in the context of a trans person being deadnamed, some characters who use alternate names or aliases that they seem to prefer are occasionally called by their original name. One moment in Canto VIII has a major character's mother aghast that their coworkers are not calling them by their birth name.
A certain Abnormality (Shock Centipede) is likely based on this type of therapy, as implied in the voice lines for its corresponding EGO, and can be subjected to it in its Mirror Dungeon event (no audiovisual component, only text).
A major character's development that is delved into during Canto VIII is them overcoming the dissociation and detachment they have been experiencing ever since they witnessed something extremely traumatic as a child.
many of the main characters are heavily implied to suffer from mental illness- however the violent acts they engage in are not because of their mental illness, instead a result of the world they live in.
There're reoccuring squelchy noises when enemy units or your own units die during gameplay and when violence happens during the story, but these can be turned off in the settings via lowering the sfx meter.
Shown graphically on screen and discussed in the cutscene right after the first abnormality fight in the Canto V dungeon. (Additionally, there is a Heathcliff identity whose pre-uptie art is based on this scene and shows similarly graphic self harm)
If you count things like being stuffed in a bag/sack with other people, yes. I'm sure there are a few other possible examples as well, but nothing is visually shown iirc.
(Spoilers)
Well technically yes, but the “child” that was born was an inhuman monster that ripped its way out of the woman’s stomach, so it probably doesn’t count
In a flashback in Canto VIII, a pregnant woman's fetus is mutated into (or possibly entirely replaced with) a monster and rips itself free of its mother's womb, killing her and others. The pregnant woman's death is not explicitly visually shown.
In-game, the main cast consists of 13 public-domain literature protagonists, one of which is Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis., which used his transformation into a giant bug as a metaphor for the sudden wave of anti-jewish hate faced by jewish author franz kafka in early-1900's germany. While only his arm becomes that of an insect's here, he is still the target of bigotry and ridicule because of it.
Out of universe, during May (Jewish Heritage Month) of 2025, he got an Identity where he's a half-snake hybrid and his uptie story depicts him murdering a child, lining up with two very extreme antisemitic myths.
Canto 3 contains the main antagonists Kromer and the N Corp Inquisition discriminate against and brutally murder and torture people who use prosthetics. Several Sinner identities are also apart of this organisation and hold the same beliefs
Kind of? a scene in the first chapter depicts a hellish alternate dimension (?) that the main character can pull open to bring the sinners back to life. the game is rife with hellish imagery and certain abnormalities could be considered demonic in nature.
Real-world religions are not discussed, but the N Corp. Inquisition dresses itself up as crusaders, including having scriptures, though only one optional uptie scene discusses that point.
Certain EGO (Roseate Desire) are somewhat reminiscent of bondage due to their appearance, voice lines and general theming, but it is more of a metaphor, not any kind of explicit reference.
Canto VIII reveals a main character is betrothed to a side character. In the source material this Canto is based upon, these characters are first cousins (and indeed marry each other), but there is no evidence they are related in Limbus Company.