Bandai Namco’s cancelled anime MMORPG Blue Protocol will release on PC and mobile this year outside of Japan, in Europe, North America and Latin America.
In August last year, the publisher stated it would shut down the Japanese servers for Blue Protocol and cancelled its western release. Then, a few months later, the Tencent-funded developer Bokura picked up the project, carried over some of the original development team, and gave it a new name, Blue Protocol: Star Resonance.
Now the free-to-play game is confirmed for release outside of Japan for the first time and will be available on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) and on mobile (iOS, Google).
The game will also support cross-platform play between the two platforms, with synchronised progression.
The MMORPG released in Japan in June 2023, with a proposed western release managed not by Bandai Namco but by Amazon Games. The game was intended to follow the likes of Lost Ark and New World as Amazon Games’ next big MMO.
However, the game received a mixed reaction from Japanese players. Its shutdown last year brought an end to hopes it would finally see a release outside of the country. A statement from the developers at the time said the “difficult decision” had been made to end service as “it will not be possible to provide a service that satisfies all of you”.
Bandai Namco reportedly lost over a hundred staff in the last year, with the cancellation of Blue Protocol assumed to have caused job losses.
Now the game is making a return, promising a dynamic combat system, an anime-styled open world, deep character customisation, and plenty of options for socialising through trading, guilds, and community events.
I went hands-on with Blue Protocol in 2023 and although I enjoyed it, I had concerns on how it would stand out from other games in the genre. At least now we’ll be able to see for ourselves here in the west.