This Week in Mobile Games

Shady Business and Summertime Stick Figure Smash/Growth

It's time again, and I find myself wondering, "What the heck's going on with all my hotbars?" Yep, I've gotten back into Final Fantasy XIV, hyped up on the prospect of the just-announced Evercold expansion, coming next year. I had to bow out of regular play shortly before the last expansion, Dawntrail, launched, and relearning the game has been a fun exercise in seeing just how much has changed between then and now, even before the major updates Square Enix plans to introduce to the game when Evercold hits. 

But that game isn't mobile (at least not outside China), putting it out of our scope, for this is....

NC Reveals Astrae Oratio In the Shadow of Blue Archive Developer Disturbance

South Korea-based publisher NC (a.k.a. NCSoft) has a new game to announce: Astrae Oratio, a game once known as Project AT. That's pretty much it, seeing as the newly-opened Astrae Oratio official website contains little more than the title and a countdown timer for what is presumably a more detailed reveal around May 7th, 2026. There's not much to go on - we're still not even fully sure it's a mobile game - but Astrae Oratio is, at the moment, more interesting less because of what it is than because of who's making it. 

And who's making it? Dynamis One, a studio led by staffers who once worked on Nexon's Blue Archive. Now, a new studio founded by veterans from an existing one is hardly a new thing in game development, but Dynamis One's origins are rooted in a juicy bit of corporate scandal. The scandal dates back to 2024 and the game that should have been Dynamis One's debut work: Project KV. 

As reported by Automaton Media, Project KV was originally announced in mid-2024, heavily promoting involvement by Blue Archive luminaries isakusan (the lead scenario writer), DoReMi (art director), and Mitsukiyo (composer), who had recently announced their departures from Nexon and the Blue Archive team. Project KV was announced with a splashy trailer featuring a Japanese-themed urban fantasy set in the "Dorm City" of Kapila, and centered around sword-wielding, vaguely angelic schoolgirls, with the player cast as their teacher.

Do you think that setup sounds suspiciously familiar? You're not the only one! Fans and commentators immediately clocked Project KV's aesthetic and tonal similarities to Blue Archive, which happens to be a Japanese-themed urban fantasy set in the "Academy City" of Kivotos, and centered around gun-toting, vaguely angelic schoolgirls, with the player cast as their teacher. They ran comparison videos made comparison videos between the KV trailer and actual Blue Archive trailers, as well as pointing out other commonalities between character designs and other concepts. Some English-language commentators even began hyping the game as a "sequel" or spiritual successor to Blue Archive itself (not a totally radical position, given that the creatives associated with KV were closely associated with factors fans credited with Blue Archive's appeal).

It didn't last, though. Even putting aside the tendency for many of these types of games to look alike from the outside and creators' natural predisposition to creating work similar to their own, KV and Blue Archive were just too close for comfort. The controversy escalated, and barely a week after its announcement, KV was cancelled outright. In February 2025, South Korean law enforcement even raided Dynamis One's offices in Seoul, and in October prosecutors announced an investigation into the company over allegations of embezzlement, unfair competition, "plotting" to undermine Blue Archive's production, and even using assets from an Nexon production codenamed "MX Blade" for themselves (though this wasn't publicly confirmed to be related to Project KV).

That the investigation still seems to be ongoing didn't deter NC from announcing in January 2026 that it would fund and publish Project AT (now Astrae Oratio), though. If or when results come out, it remains to be seen whether they'll cast a shadow over Dynamis One's proper debut.

Dragon Quest Smash/Grow Launches With A Dragon Quest 1 Crossover Event

Square Enix launched Dragon Quest Smash/Grow properly on April 28, and sweetened the deal for diehard DQ fans by kicking off a Dragon Quest 1-themed crossover event alongside the global debut.

Players will be able to explore a map patterned after almost the full map of Dragon Quest 1's world of Alefgard, earning DQ1 Gold Coins that can be swapped for rewards. Among the rewards is a limited replica of Erdrick's Equipment set, the classic blue-and-gold knightly armor fit for a legendary hero.

I haven't had a chance to play Smash/Grow, seeing I'm pretty full up on mobile games at the moment (heck, I never even got back to Dissidia Duellum despite being rather positive on it during our test period. If nothing else, it might be interesting for DQ fans who want a taste of the series to play on their phones. Smash/Grow is currently the only extant Dragon Quest mobile game, seeing as Dragon Quest Tact shut down in 2024. 

Maidens' Corner: Love And Deepspace Gets Stick-Figure Promos for Summer Scenes

Today's Maidens' Corner will be a bit short, but sweet, and possibly too spicy for publication. At least, that's what publisher Infold Games and its social media team seem to think ahead of the debut of Love And Deepspace's official summer event on April 30. 

The event, which should be live by the time you read this, is titled Rippling Desires and unlocks the Lingering Lust lineup of Memories, which, in Love and Deepspace parlance, are semi-interactive cutscenes depicting romantic interactions between the protagonist and their hot man of choice. These scenes often feature first-person viewpoints, making it look like you, lucky girl, are placing your hand on your man's rippling bod. 

Needless to say, this content can get quite hot, and summer events are home to some of the spiciest scenes of all. So spicy that Infold Games spent a couple of days before the kickoff choosing not to upload actual clips from the scenes themselves, instead uploading lightly animated stick-figure recreations of the scenes set to their audio. I have to say, even these promos were rather suggestive, and I didn't feel fully comfortable embedding the videos in the column! You'll have to settle for this one screenshot or visit the Twitter links themselves.

Fans noticed the sudden onset of restraint, and theorized that the stunt was not just a play for attention but also a gambit to avoid getting dinged by regulators or YouTube's moderation systems for uploading adult content. That makes some sense, as the summer scenes in question feature more exposure than usual. Additionally, as of press time, the actual, proper trailer with more explicit previews is still hosted only on Infold's Twitter account and the game's official site, not on YouTube.

In any case, the gambit appears to have paid off, and a good number of players are demanding that Infold stick with the strategy for future updates as well. Considering the way authorities have been leaning into overt censorship of even remotely adult content lately, that might be the smart play.

Girls' Frontline Launches Its "Final" Storyline on May 12

Publisher Sunborn and developer MICA Team have announced that the English-language version of Girls' Frontline (the original game, not its also-active sequel Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium) will receive its very last story event, Quantum Fluctuations, on May 12, 2026. The event launched on the main Chinese server in October 2025.

Quantum Fluctuations marks the culmination of events set out in Girls' Frontline, setting up a climactic confrontation between the player Commander and William, a high-level official associated with the nefarious Paradeus organization, and the running antagonist for much of both GFL and its single-player prequel/original, Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery. 

The event also marks the breakpoint between the stories of Girls' Frontline and Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium, which takes place in the same timeline, ten years later. Now, while the end of a story - any story- shouldn't be a momentous occasion in and of itself, Quantum Fluctuations is notable because it's one of the relative few endings in the live service and gacha game space. Launching as they do with fairly strict server requirements and a business model that depends on a constant flow of new content, free-to-play and gacha games are rightly seen as "forever games," designed never to end and to keep players on their treadmills for as long as they remain profitable. That Girls' Frontline gets not only an ending but a sequel (Exilium) is an interesting and notable wrinkle.

That said, this doesn't mean the game is going offline, at least not yet. The Chinese version of the game is still active, and players can still roll the gacha for skins (GFL does not have a character-based gacha system, unlike most of its peers and Exilium, so its main monetization channel is based on cosmetic skins), but the story is pretty much done. A future pivot into a premium or semi-premium offline edition also seems to be in the cards, as recent updates have removed certain live service contrivances like daily missions. I would personally welcome the day I can pick up a playable archive edition of Girls' Frontline that'll allow me to catch up with the story, the better to understand what the heck's going on in Exilium.

 

Genshin Impact Takes Travelers to Snezhnaya on August 12

Speaking of games that feel like they're building up to a major shift, HoYoVerse has (as of last week, at least) begun the process of teasing what looks like Genshin Impact's next really big update: The addition of the frozen region of Snezhnaya. For Genshin veterans, this is pretty big news, seeing as the "Nation of Cryo" has been something of the end goal for the Traveler's journey, almost since the game's launch. 

Throughout the entire main plotline of Genshin Impact, Snezhnaya and its leader, the Tsarita, have pursued mysterious goals through the influence of the Fatui, an organization of convenient human baddies and occasional allies. Recent updates (specifically the "Luna" line) have given players a taste of Snezhnayan influence by introducing the sub-region of Nod-Krai, but August 12, 2026, will see the Traveler enter Snezhnaya proper, perhaps to finally meet with the Archon of Cryo and gain insight into her plans for her nation and the world. 

Appropriately, HoYoVerse released a lengthy mini-documentary on April 24th to whet fans' appetites ahead of the launch, with staff talking up the frozen area and promising new twists and turns for players to enjoy. Hosted by Genshin Impact R&D Engineer Xiaodan and Combat Designer Aquaria, the doc teased some notable bits from the new northern region, as well as new uses for the Cryo element that tie into the environment. They also promised twists on exploration to rival or even surpass the underwater movement mode and environments introduced with the Fontaine update back in 2023. 

Other changes previewed include improvements to character rendering (that the devs promised wouldn't impact the game's playability on mobile devices), and greater integration of cinematic storytelling and gameplay, along with a "mysterious device" that allows players to somewhat reshape the world in a way that other players can see and interact with. 

The more interesting aspect of the Snezhnaya preview was Genshin Impact's creators discussing the game's future, up to and including a potential "conclusion" arriving with the Traveler's arrival in Snezhnaya and the possible end of their journey. They didn't go so far as to say the game would be done, but did promise an eventual end that would feel "natural" for the story rather than solely motivated by the game's commercial potential. 

Speaking during this segment, Aquaria specifically name-dropped notable recent triple-A games, such as Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy and Kojima Productions' Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and consultations the Genshin Impact team had with various other game designers from studios all over the world, as examples of the work being done to evolve existing designs over time. The mentions led up to a promise to further evolve Genshin Impact in the future.

Whatever you think of Genshin Impact itself, the segment is a refreshingly candid acknowledgement that is well and truly a peer of the current triple-A scene and is aiming to measure up to and possibly go past its own inspirations, with ambitions perhaps exceeding the seismic influence it had when it launched in 2020. 

Of course, talk is really quite cheap. Six years is rather long in the tooth for a live service game, and Genshin Impact's competition (some of it coming from within the same company, even!) is only getting more intense. Time and the eventual debut of the Snezhnaya update will tell more about the game's actual future than any number of heartfelt statements.

Let's close things out with a few more news bits:

• By the time you read this, Neverness to Everness will have launched properly on PS5, PC, and mobile. I'll have more to say about it in the next installment of the column (read: I haven't played it yet), but early commercial returns from the game's global launch are positive, with the game raking in over 100 million RMB on its first day, surpassing developer Hotta Studio's previous game, Tower of Fantasy (which last year added a new server that pivoted entirely away from the "traditional" gacha character model and into something closer to a regular MMORPG). Notably, it seems some players took its massive Grand Theft Auto-like promise of scale as a near-threat, and have mostly been playing on home-based hardware rather than mobile, with the revenue split heavily favoring PC and PS5 over mobile devices.

• Zenless Zone Zero is launching on Steam, with the upcoming New: Eridan Sunset update coinciding with the Steam launch on May 6, 2026. Now, the game (and the other HoYo games) are frankly just fine on PC using the standard HoYoPlay launcher, but it seems that no one can ignore that slice of PC gamers that will not play a game that's not on Steam. Better to (eventually) surrender to Valve a cut of the proceeds than forgo that audience entirely, unless you happen to be Fortnite.

• Here's a bit of news I missed last month because I legit thought it was an April Fools' joke: C2 Architecture, developer of the legendary browser/mobile game Kantai Collection, has rebooted Plan-[Ki] (a.k.a. Ki-go Keikaku) into a 3D strategy RPG for PC and mobile platforms. Plan-[ki]was supposed to be a new game released way back in 2011, but development was suspended to focus on continuing to update Kan Colle thanks to its wild success in the 2010s. From the looks of the game, it appears to be a historical fiction game, taking place in an alternate take on Japan's Showa era (the period that covers 1926 to 1989). In-development screenshots from the developer's Twitter account show images of characters wearing uniforms reminiscent of Imperial Japanese military clothing and working alongside vintage WW2-era Japanese tanks. C2 Architecture didn't mention a planned release window.

• Kaiju No. 8 The Game has a new update out right in time for Golden Week in Japan. Main Story Chapter 11, "Wanderfalke" sees the debut of a new character, Zoee Wanderfalk, who has hair in transgender-flag colors and pilots a "Ride-Frame" mecha suit in battle against the Kaiju.

And that's it from me! With luck, I'll have some time to actually dig into some games I've been meaning to play (and not just write about) with a brief reprieve from day job duties. Things are heating up this summer, so keep yourselves cool and safe.