It was a truly somber and tremulous day when Illusion, one of the most renowned and coveted Japanese eroge developers, announced their closure on July 14th, 2023. This marked the end of an era spanning decades of innovation in adult-oriented pornographic games.

Illusion was a pioneer in both graphical excellence and user customization, having developed notable titles like RapeLay, Koikatsu and Artificial Academy. We even glossed over the fact that an absolutely devoted Gundam fan opted into making their own scale models in Koikatsu without the much usage of third party game mods.

However, the sadness among fans of Illusion’s legendary game collection quickly faded with the emergence of ILLGAMES, an eroge development company that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Upon their establishment ILLGAMES announced “HoneyCome,” a highly limited eroge screen viewer that visually resembled a modern Illusion title.

This sparked widespread speculation among fans, suggesting that ILLGAMES might be a successor or continuation of Illusion, potentially staffed by the same team, although no official confirmation exists. However, given the similarities in their work and the strikingly similar names, I’m inclined to believe that ILLGAMES is indeed Illusion under a new guise.

HoneyCome initially garnered significant attention because its developers, ILLGAMES, appeared out of nowhere and released the game shortly after Illusion announced their closure. The game received a mixed reception, as it seemed to have been developed with budget constraints.

While Illusion had offered players extensive life simulation features, HoneyCome had a much narrower focus and lacked these elements. Instead, it primarily served as a platform for character customization and sexual content, with little else beyond that.

And now, ILLGAMES have teased a brand new game project. With their upcoming 3D title aiming to rectify HoneyCome’s problems much to the delight of many fans, continuing from where Illusion left off.

In the brief nine-second teaser video, scenes show characters moving around various areas such as a train station, a classroom, and more, suggesting that ILLGAMES’ second game might be school-themed with some limited form of travel, hinting at a focus on life simulation.

Although the teaser doesn’t showcase traditional 3D world travel like Illusion’s Koikatsu, it appears to use a fixed-perspective camera on a given map. It also features icons resembling commands usable on the map outside of conversations, aligning more closely with the style of Artificial Academy.

Whether their next project matches the grand scale of Koikatsu isn’t the main concern. Even if it’s an Artificial Academy clone, it would be enough for ILLGAMES to establish their footing and grow.

The character customization and model quality are likely to have improved from HoneyCome, or at the very least, the customization options will have expanded.

“HoneyCome” is available on Steam, although an external patch is required to match the domestic version’s features. Therefore, it is likely that ILLGAMES’ new title will target a release on Steam as well with features removed, similar to some of Illusion’s more recent releases.

Fans of 3D eroge bishoujo games should definitely keep an eye on ILLGAMES’ upcoming release.