Publishers Square Enix and developer Applibot have officially announced the termination of their mobile RPG “NieR Re[in]carnation”, with the final chapter of the game’s story, the conclusion of “The People and the World” arc, set to release on March 28, 2024.
Following this, the game will continue to run for a month before its service ends on April 29, 2024, at 10 pm PST.
Until the shutdown date, additional characters, events, and campaigns will be introduced. NieR Re[in]carnation takes players through an area known as the Cage, where they collect distorted parts of “weapon’s memory” and work to restore them.
The game features 3D exploration in the Cage, 2D events for the weapon’s memory, and combat at specific points. Initially launched in Japan in February 2021 for iOS and Android, it was later released internationally in July that very same year.
Square Enix is no stranger to terminating services when it comes to the abundance of mobile gacha games under its banner, given how the company as a whole continues to hemorrhage money each and every quarter, they’ve been shutting down their arsenal of mobile games left and right in recent memory.
I said it with pride last year, that I looked forward to Square Enix killing off more of its mobile game services as we headed into 2024. We haven’t so much as managed a full month before another one of their failed projects goes under, with Square Enix previously announcing the termination for Echoes of Mana for its one year anniversary, a Dragon Quest mobile game ended its life on April 26, 2023 and Final Fantasy VII: The First Solder was annexed on January 11th, 2023.
Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia is due to shut down on February 29th, 2024 alongside the western release for Dragon Quest Tact. Engage Kiss will shut down on March 21st, while Fullmetal Alchemist Mobile will be purged on March 29th.
And now? NieR Re[in]carnation joins the ever evolving list of Square Enix produced mobile games, based on established franchises spawned entirely out of greed and profit, desperate to capture the eyes and wallets with gacha elements to be terminated.
Call it a coincidence or a superstition but I just find it hilarious how other mobile gacha games that collaborate with Persona 5 Royal for limited timed events and banners, such as Dragalia Lost, the previously mentioned Fullmetal Alchemist Mobile alongside Sword Art Online: Memory Defrag and Star Ocean: Anamnesis and now NieR Re[in]carnation all coincidentally ending their services following collaborations with the Persona mobile game.
Regardless, another Square Enix mobile game bites the dust. Given their extensive track record of arbitrarily terminating services and access to a near infinite amount of gacha games, do they genuinely believe that consumers would give them the benefit of the doubt and willingness to pour money into yet another Square Enix produced mobile game?
Let NieR Re[in]carnation serve as another reminder for consumers to simply avoid anything that Square Enix touches, or better yet just avoid the whole fucking concept of these mobile GaaS titles.
Mobile gacha games are a desperate tactic, no matter how tempting they may be, they are always penny pinching rubbish that will never be allowed to remain active for any decent amount of time so long as it doesn’t continually churn out a massive profit.
It’s truly a shame too, the last decent game Square had under their belt was NieR Automata of which they’re seemingly reluctant to actually continue in any meaningful way besides milking their fanbase with aforementioned mobile gacha games or anime adaptations.
