Today Bushiroad finally announced the global release window for its latest Love Live! mobile game Love Live! School Idol Festival 2: Miracle Live!, but the fans are far from celebrating.
As announced on X (formerly Twitter) the game will indeed launch globally in English in February 2024, but it will then shut down on May 31, 2024. No. This is not an April Fools' prank out of season.
The reason is actually pretty simple as much as it may be unexpected for many. Sit down and grab some coffee because this is certainly a rollercoaster of a story.
The rhythm game Love Live! School Idol Festival 2: Miracle Live! released in Japan in April 2023 almost immediately following the closure of its predecessor Love Live! School Idol Festival both in Japan and in the West in March.
Bushiroad tried to make the transition as smooth as possible by creating a data transfer feature between the two games, but unfortunately, the Western version wasn't going to be ready for quite a while. We heard it'd come in 2023 at Anime Expo in the summer, but it did not happen.
In the meanwhile, it's quite likely that the game was not as successful as the company expected, as today we got the announcement that the Japanese version itself will close down on May 31, 2024, just a year after its launch.
Yet, the publisher has been working on the Global version, even if it has taken longer than expected. They can't waste all that localization work, so they're still releasing it... 3 months before its shutdown that will match that of the Japanese version.
Pre-registration is already available on Apple's app store, while the Android version is still pending.
This is certainly pretty wild, and while the mobile market has always been full of quirks, I think this is a first in my 20+ year career reporting on games.
I suppose many fans of the series will still welcome a chance for an encore, and the ability to play the new songs for a few months, but it's certainly going to feel weird to play a game that is already condemned to disappear very quickly. We could say it's a stark piece of evidence of the biggest weakness of the game-as-a-service model.
Personally, I'm surprised to see this happen, considering that the LoveLive! franchise has been popular for a long time and the previous game of the series ran successfully for a decade. Yet, I suppose that nothing lasts forever.
In the meanwhile, Bushiroad has set its sights on the console market and is specializing in bringing popular anime IPs to PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC. Among the titles, we see successful series like Hunter X Hunter, Macross, Danmachi, Mushoku Tensei, and Goblin Slayer.
Hopefully, they'll do better than Love Live! School Idol Festival 2: Miracle Live!
