Shadow Hearts is a role-playing video game developed by Sacnoth for the PlayStation 2. Published in Japan by Aruze in 2001, it was published internationally by Midway Games in the same year and 2002 (Europe). The titular first game in the Shadow Hearts series, it acts as a sequel to the 1999 video game Koudelka, being set in the same world and featuring recurring characters.

Sacnoth Inc., renamed Nautilus Inc. in 2002, was a Japanese video game developer based in Tokyo. The company was founded in April 1997 by Hiroki Kikuta with funding from SNK; its staff, including Kikuta, were veterans of Square. While their first releases were the Dive Alert games for the Neo Geo Pocket Color (NGPC), the company was founded to produce Koudelka, a role-playing video game for the PlayStation. The development of Koudelka was troubled due to creative differences between Kikuta and the rest of the staff, with Kikuta resigning as CEO following the game's release and being replaced by Jun Mihara. The company also released the NGPC game Faselei!.