I know a lot has been spread that Valko was cancelled because the CN audience of LaDS thought he was too ugly. It's true that he doesn't fit their aesthetics, and that they called him ugly a lot especially the 1st day of his reveal. But if aesthetics was the only problem, players wouldn't have been so angry that the game's DAU (Daily Active Users) would be cut in half. 

What is Love and Deepspace?

It's a 3D otome game made by Papergames with realistic graphics that focuses on 5 characters (Xavier-Shen Xinghui, Rafayel-Qi Yu, Zayne-Li Shen, Sylus-Qin Che, and Caleb-Xia Yizhou). It focuses on the story and romance with the LIs, has ARPG combat, has roguelite gameplay modes, and also a sims-like house feature. 

What were the game’s constant issues even before the 6th LI? 

The game has many issues which include:

• The Main Story gets updated at a glacial pace (Twice a year when the game only has 5 LIs. One particular LI, Caleb, hasn’t had any MS update since his release 550+ days ago). Branch stories are a bit different from MS. They’re like alternate versions of what happened in a main story chapter.

• The last 2 LIs (Sylus and Caleb) had significantly less base content than the 3 LIs on release (more on this later)
• The game direction getting noticeably more monetized with barely any free content.
• The game’s story relying on limited paid banners which have become repetitive as of late (mostly about vacations, AUs, almost always fluff).
• Imagine Genshin’s main story barely being updated but there’s always new characters to pull for (let’s say 2-6 characters per month) with a fluffy character story chapter that isn’t related to the MS (but they'll drop nuggets of lore sometimes). I think that would be the Genshin equivalent of what is happening with LaDS. 
• To add to the previous point, the game has a lot of multi banners (themed banners that have all LI). In 2025, we had 6 (SIX! Or 7 if you include Nightly Rendezvous) multis. I get wanting that multi banner money. But honestly, to me they could have MS banners too if they wanted to monetize them where we can delve even deeper into an LI after their MS. Caleb’s Painful Signal and Lucid Dream cards are a good example of this. So I think they just don’t know how to write the Main Story.

• Dark skinned players always having a bad time in the game. They can barely see their MCs due to the cutscene’s bad lighting, card arts only have light skinned MC, and the 2D chibis that represent your MC always has pale skin). (I’ve seen CN complain about MC’s 4* and 2D chibi skintone too but global is more vocal about this. While this is a prevailing issue in the game, it’s not in the list of CN players’ main complaints). 2.5 years and they still haven't figured out how to properly show MCs that aren't pale in cutscenes.

Sylus and Caleb were released after the game’s launch. Why were players angry at Valko’s inclusion when he was also a ‘new’ LI?

To preface, PaperGames already announced after the beta that Sylus and Caleb would be released after the launch, players just didn't know when. In the beta, they also put hints for Sylus, and you can meet Caleb too.

“They didn’t mention Valko because that would be spoilers and they got angry at Sylus’ leaks when he was released.” Yes they care about leaks and the Sylus one made Papergames really angry. But Caleb literally exploded in the beta and they still confirmed he’s an LI. Informing players about upcoming LIs ≠  leaks

These two were already integrated in the main story from the start. Sylus and his organization were mentioned in the main story on release. Caleb basically had half a chapter dedicated to him before he ‘died’. So for all CN players knew, there will only be 5 LIs. 

What about Valko? Well, he wasn’t mentioned anywhere during/after the beta. Not even a hint that they were thinking about a 6th LI. They applied for his trademark the day of his teaser trailer.

And the only hint he has in the story is a World Underneath (text only side stories for lore) that was released in April 2026, only 2 months before he was announced. That hint only mentions that the company he’s a chairman of, EonCore, is in close collaboration with EVER, the big bad of the story. Compare that with Sylus and his organization, Onychinus, where they were already mentioned as early as Chapter 3.10 on the game's release.

Another ‘hint’ is the UI. The list of the LIs had ‘Coming Soon’ even after Caleb was released. However, after the July 9 update, a week after Valko’s cancellation, they removed the ‘Coming Soon’ label.

So. CN players only knew about 5 LIs. That’s what Papergames told them. So what? 

In an announcement on July 6, 2024, they mentioned that they had insufficient production capacity. On July 15, 2024, Sylus was released with significantly less base content than the 3 LIs

What is this base content?

1. Standard battle companions: The OG3 had 3 battle companions from the start to help with combat. Sylus (and later Caleb) only had 1. 
2. Bond stories: They are stories fully animated (around 10-15 min length) that unlock as affinity with the LI increase. OG3 had 2, Sylus and Caleb only had 1.
3. Anecdotes: Text-only side stories that expand on the LIs lore and characterization such as their backstories or their lives in their alternate universes. This is different from World Underneath where it focuses on world building or other NPCs’ lives related to the LIs. Each anecdote also has a battle companion (from point #1) connected to it. So OG3 has 3 anecdotes. Sylus and Caleb only have 1.
4. Significantly less 4 star (and 3 star) cards: Every 4/5* card has a story. And it can also be used for battles. When battling, you need 2 solar cards and 4 lunar cards of different colors of 1 LI, and you can’t use different LI cards. Each matching color has a +5% damage against enemies, and when you match all colors, you’ll be able to easily put the enemies in its break phase (think of HSR’s break).
   1. So if you have less base 4 star cards, that LI will have less story content. And if you’re a new solo Sylus/Caleb player, you will have a tougher time with battles. There’s also leveling up affinity of LIs which can unlock texts, calls, poses, etc. So less cards means less ways to level up and unlock content of an LI too.

Given that the main story moved at a glacial pace, and that Papergames never added the above I mentioned to Sylus and Caleb. Can we interpret that they never fixed their insufficient production capacity? If they never fixed it, then how come they had resources to make another LI? Or if they did fix it, it means they didn’t care to listen to player feedback. 

But how come players of all LIs got angry and not only Sylus and Caleb players?

The difference between Sylus, Caleb, and Valko’s livestream content. Version 6.0 had nothing for the existing 5 LIs

Let’s compare the version updates:

1. Version 2.0, Sylus, July 2024
   1. Abyssal Chaos Part 1: roguelite gameplay with lots of storylines, branches, and different endings for each LI
   2. New free outfits for Xavier, Rafayel, and Zayne
   3. Announcement of release dates for the branch stories of OG3
   4. More stages for Deepspace Trials (endgame combat) and LI-specific Orbits (it’s like the Deepspace Trials but you gain affinity for that LI)
   5. 3 new World Underneath stories
   6. The smaller stuff that I forgot (new photo feature, etc)
2. Version 3.0, Caleb, January 2025
   1. Abyssal Chaos Part 2
   2. Paid outfits for all 5
   3. Free 4* cards and an event for all 5
   4. More stages for Deepspace Trials and LI orbits
   5. The small stuff that I forgot (period tracker, etc)
3. Version 6.0, Valko, June 2026
   1. NO roguelite update. We’ve had Abyssal Chaos Part 1 & 2 (in ver 2.0 & 3.0), and Unicorns Operation in ver 4.0. This means no combat or additional story content. Not only for the other 5 but also for Valko too btw!
   2. There’s a kitchen update. However, unlike the roguelite feature, which have storylines and branches distinct to an LI. The interactions for the kitchen unfortunately aren’t unique to each LI. 
   3. A giveaway of the 5 LI’s free 4* from the very recent January update. So you most likely already have this if you’ve been playing since January.
   4. Other stuff (new widgets)
   5. Announcement of upcoming new main story for Caleb and Sylus. No release date unlike what they did in version 2.0. And it was at the very end of the livestream where it was silent like they were doing an in memoriam. (It’s very clear that this part was slapped on after facing livid CN players. And that they originally never intended for any MS/branch updates for these two in the near future.)

So! Glacial main story updates (Caleb hasn’t had an MS update for 550+ days), severe lack of base content for Sylus and Caleb, repetitive writing for multi events, and barely anything at all for the 5 LIs in version 6.0.

Does that mean most resources went to the 6th LI? Or that they couldn't keep up with the output (because like I said, there's barely anything for the 5 in ver 6.0) and yet they decided to go ahead with Valko anyway? Yeah CN is angry angry

The timeline since Valko’s introduction and CN’s boycott

Here’s another DAU graph but more updated. I’ll also be using UTC+8 Beijing for the dates and time. Stats (both this one and the one above) are from tieba’s 壁吧专楼吧 in the thread where they talk a lot about different games’ revenue and DAU (that they scrape).

June 22 19:30

• Valko’s first trailer dropped and received a lot of hate. His weibo post had 2 million comments before the video was removed after his cancellation
• How much hate did he get compared to Sylus and Caleb, new LIs but were already anticipated by CN players? Here’s a XHS comparison I took 3 days after this trailer.

So after his announcement, CN players realized that they needed to mobilize or else Papergames would walk over them with no worries even when the game has several glaring issues. They decided to team up and boycott as seen in the DAU graph. But even without that, you can tell from Papergame’s responses that their data was worrying.

June 26 11:00

• Another trailer dropped and people noticed his facial structure having similarities to different LIs in every other frame, almost like his face is morphing. Personally, I thought his face during this trailer was inconsistent. In some frames he looks like Sylus, sometimes Caleb, even though both of them look nothing alike to me. 
• DAU has dropped an impressive ~400k. From 1.88m to 1.4m

June 28 01:00

• They suddenly dropped an announcement at 1 AM (when China should be sleeping?) saying that "Valko is part of a long-term plan" (remember Sylus and Caleb but not Valko being in the beta + were announced before the game’s launch + Valko’s trademark date? Yeah), that Caleb's and Sylus's Main Stories are in ‘active’ development, and that myths will be arriving soon. (myths are LaDS biggest money makers because lore + combat) 
• They bribe players with 10 limited wishes and 10 standard wishes
• This angers players even more because they didn’t seem apologetic at all. They mention Caleb and Sylus’ main story in a ‘here damn!’ way. And they dangle myths kind of like saying ‘give us more money!’
• To me, it’s quite clear that CN’s reaction to them since June 22 made them feel like they needed to make a response. DAU decreased ~600k at this point, from 1.8m to 1.2m. That’s a worryingly sharp decline and the free wishes is basically begging people to come back.

June 28 19:30

• Version 6.0 livestream drops angering all 5 LI players. I’ve already mentioned that there was no new content at all for the 5 LIs besides the kitchen

So days after June 22, Papergames was hounded by the press and was even condemned by China’s Women’s Confederation for the phrase ‘inviting a wolf into your home’ in Valko’s marketing. Idk how to describe it well but PPG's reputation was really bad like imagine your door keeps getting banged on 24/7.

I’m not equipped to elaborate on the women's safety issue in his marketing, but here’s a very informative thread explaining it and the use of Unit 731 reference in the game. It’s a bad phrase that’s victim blamey in CN.

June 29

• Love and Deepspace 731 shoots up in Weibo’s trending topics in the afternoon. I can't remember how long it was, but I do remember that within 30 min to an hour, it got lower and lower until it was completely removed. I heard removing something from trending costs a whole lot of money compared to putting something on trending.
• The story in question was a World Underneath story about human experimentation by EVER with the log [Test Record A-0731]. Just to remind you, Eoncore was in close collaboration with and funded EVER and Valko is Eoncore’s chairman. While of course they’ll good guy-ify him regarding this, it’s still not a good look haha. It's not important but I’m only mentioning this because I see a lot of ‘Well that WU was about another guy and not Valko’. Also, CN focused on 731 at this point and not Valko anymore. They don’t even mention him regarding the numbers. 
• At this point, the press, outsiders, and players were now hounding Papergames for Unit 731 references, not the character anymore. (For reference, My Hero Academia was banned in China for having a villain that referenced Unit 731)
• Later that night, Papergames announced that the World Underneath wasn’t referencing Unit 731, but they will change it and train their staff better. Or that the phrase they used in Valko’s trailers (related to victim blaming) was because he’s a wolf, and that it didn’t have any other meaning, but they will change that too. They also imply that players are crazy lol. Naturally this angered CN players even further because they're not the one who put that in the game lol.

LaDS had around 1.8m CN players before June 22 (perhaps even more in April). It’s said that CN players, who are of course more than familiar with their own history, have already warned Papergames about this number when the World Underneath dropped in April.

Which is more likely? That out of ~1.8m players, no one noticed and reported it to CS? Or that Papergames ignored it? So everyone took this as another example of Papergames just refusing to listen to players even when they were actually trying to help the game.

June 30 20:00

• This letter is more ‘apologetic’ compared to their 1st and 2nd announcements. But then you get to the bottom and you see #LADSValkoCanceled so how apologetic are they?
• Valko is deleted from the game and they will focus on the 5 existing LIs from now on. 
• However, they still haven’t addressed the glacial main story updates (what is their 'stable pace'? Every 6 months?), or anything at all. "Oh hey Raf's myth is coming make sure to give us money!" So CN is still boycotting. Although the DAU has stabilized to ~900k now after his cancellation. 
• Players also get 1 wish everyday for 30 days to boost DAU lol

Also I just want to show that his cancellation after a few hours had more likes than any of Valko’s posts after a few days hahahaha (60k vs 3-6k). He was NOT well-liked at all. And also a comparison on how it would have looked like if the announced LI was actually loved and anticipated

I also want to mention that they've lost around 1.4m followers across their social media accounts around this time lol. There was a joke going around that every time they post something, people remember that they forgot to unfollow

July 8

• They cancelled their Bilibili World event. They said that they sincerely accept criticism and will not shirk responsibility. They’ll take reverence for history, protection of national sentiment, and inheritance of Chinese culture as their standards to comprehensively carry out staff training and self-inspection and rectification.

July 9

• The game has been updated to version 6.0 with the ‘Coming Soon’ on the LI list removed from the game. 
• The rerun banner that they ran is the multi banner that emphasizes Chinese culture, and also one of the most requested reruns ever.

The rest of July

• They’ve just been silent. No social media posts. No nothing. Zayne’s free 5* was dropped in the game without any social media promo.
• People ask customer service about Raf’s myth and suddenly they reply that it’s been moved to August. Papergames did not announce at all that they’re delaying his myth. Players had to ask CS themselves. That’s how shitty this company’s communication is.
• CS response: 因近期版本排期调整较大,为确保 后续版本内容上线后的稳定性和用 户体验,制作组正在全力推进相关 筹备工作。经审慎评估,祁煜全新 日卡身份预计将在8月与大家见 面,还请您再等待一段时间,感谢 您的理解与支持 / Due to significant recent adjustments to the version schedule, the development team is working diligently to ensure the stability and user experience of subsequent version content. After careful evaluation, Qi Yu's new solar card is expected to be released in August. Please wait a little longer. Thank you for your understanding and support.
• Rumors go around that a solo Caleb card will be next, and CN Caleb mains vehemently dislike this when their core complaints are main story related. From what I’ve seen, CN Caleb mains won't be pulling his solo if it’s true that he’s next. A solo card isn’t a main story.

August 3 11:00

• Finally, a new banner is announced, Caleb’s basketball solo card. Another fluffy card unrelated to any main story plot. 
• It’s not Rafayel’s myth, who’s rumored to be a Chinese General in this myth, despite them saying that they will reveal that in July. Because myths and multis are the biggest money makers, I assume they’re either waiting to reveal it when the mood is more calm to maximize profits, or they’re improving it a lot or modifying and polishing it.

CN is still boycotting (or some of them probably left for good) because Valko isn’t just the issue, he’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The game already had several problems that the company refused to work on.

They added another LI when they have already been neglecting the current ones. Where is more character growth or them struggling with their views? A common complaint is that the LIs' characterization and story have basically plateued. Where is the plot? Oh well. That's not important. Here's another AU banner for you!

They lost so many players after they announced Valko, and lost a bit more after his cancellation. I say this company deserves this haha

On another note:

CN otome should be judged by CN otome standards. Not JP joseimuke games (like twst/enstars), JP mobile otome games (like Ikemen series), nor any CN general games (like Genshin)

The CN otome structure focuses on a small cast of LIs (the Big 6 CN otome only have 4-5 LIs and they have been doing well for years). They focus on companionship, character & relationship growth with the player over the years. It’s wrong to say “LaDS will fall if they don’t continuously add new LIs” because that has never been what CN otome players (where the majority of revenue come from) look for. 

There was another game that added a sudden new LI when that game already had several problems. The players boycotted, and that LI became a ‘special encounter’, an LI who doesn’t show up in many banners and generally has less content. I've already linked it above but this explains more about that game's drama and boycott. The name of the game is Love and Producer. The company’s name? Papergames. Oh man this company just refuses to learn its history lmao.

A 2 month server shutdown, into a lackluster revival patch, into 2+ months of maintenance mode. The finances for this game are probably abysmal.

😏

Earlier this day there was announcement of Canceling Valko - the 6th love interest for Love and Deepspace. (This would be like a Hoyo game cancelled an entire region RIGHT after its announcement and a week of trailer).

In these 3 days, each day LADS team issue an long statement. The lastest about Canceling Valko. However, the second one (in Chinese only) give us the reason.

TLDR: Political issue with Japan (Unit 731) and "Women's safety" issue got escalated and bring attention of major Chinese news outlets (and possibly Chinese government), appears in several top Hot Search Weibo.

Actually since Valko's teaser was release about 1 weeks ago, there was about 50,000+ formal complaints, 2 million+ comment under a single post, around 1 million followers lost across all platforms (in China). Chinese fandom calling for stop spending and the revenue per day recently is really low.

So why Chinese fandom don't like the idea of the new love interest: This post summarize it. Many fear that a new character will further dilute resources and delay content for the five original male leads, and one character not appear in the main storyline for over 500 days.

Now I will summarize the issues on the second statement and explain it:

1. The controversial date remind of Imperial Japanese Unit 731

In the “World Underneath” storyline updated on April 21, players discovered a “human drug trial experiment file” labeled with the number “A-0731”. The number “731” immediately evoked the infamous Imperial Japanese Army Unit 731, which conducted lethal biological and chemical weapons experiments on human subjects during World War II.

Compounding the outrage, players noted that a character in the same storyline—a registrar named “Yan Song”—has a name that phonetically resembles “Iwamatsui,” a Japanese army general classified as a major war criminal after the war. Critics accused the game of trivializing historical trauma and crossing a red line of national sensitivity.

-> PG respond: It just a placeholder with no hidden meaning. The team will remove it and improve their review process to avoid similar issues.

However, it take attention from many states media outlets: "Whether a string of numbers has a "special meaning" cannot be determined by a flimsy "random" or "meaningless" explanation. When the public feels offended, when historical pain is ignored, when the plot and scenes highly overlap with historical tragedies, then attempts to use "coincidence" to whitewash the situation appear self-deceptive and weak. It is hoped that this will attract the attention of relevant departments, prompt and thorough investigation, and punishment according to law, restoring a clear sky to the game world." - Women Daily

-> In short: CCP pay attention and may 'investigate' or 'have a small talk' with Papergame.

2. Promotional text controversies about 'Women's safety' issue

• Many players, not familiar with this new character, said Ao Yin is a intruder, a rapist, and uncomfortable with him.
• Many states media criticize it is Romanticization of an illegal act: "While it's normal to use imagination in live stream segments and entertainment material, imagination should not cross legal boundaries. Unauthorized entry into someone else's residence is a serious violation of rights and an illegal act. By packaging this behavior as a romantic scene, using the image of the "wolf" to portray the intruder as a charming protagonist, a seemingly subtle message of danger is conveyed: the unexpected arrival of a strange man could be a "surprise," a "chance encounter," or even the beginning of "love." - Ban Yue Tan

-> PG response: it meant to promote the upcoming Home 2.0 Kitchen gameplay, not to reference anything. Because people edited and spread misleading versions online, the developers removed the related promotional content.

3. Rumors about the new male lead

The developers denied several rumors:

• ❌ The new male lead is not exclusive to overseas players. (because many Chinese players think Valko not fit their beauty standard, so it must be for overseas player and pandering to the oversea market)
• ❌ The game is not changing into an "all-oriented" game. (rumors that player can customize the main character to man to romanticize the male love interests)
• ❌ The name "Valko" does not have the rumored hidden meaning. It comes from a Slavic word meaning "wolf," symbolizing courage, strength, and independence. (because Valko sounds like Wokou 倭寇 meaning "Japanese pirates" in Chinese.

To conclude: Actually, many things are just baseless rumors. However the key point for canceling is the political thing (Unit 731).

What's interesting is that the controversial number had been in the story since April, and almost no one paid attention to it at the time. So why did it suddenly become the center of attention?

As someone who follows both the global and Chinese fandoms, I've been surprised by how organized the Chinese fandom can be. It often operates more like a K-pop fandom—or even a professional organization—than a typical game community. Fans coordinate in large group chats to organize "consumer rights protection" campaigns, mass-report opposing opinions, and contact media outlets. They can also flood comment sections with identical messages so that the same narrative dominates the top comments. Later readers may only see those comments and assume that's the consensus.

During this controversy, many Chinese players who supported Valko said they were harassed or pressured into staying silent.

After several days of complaints, PaperGames released a second statement saying Valko would remain in the game to protect him. Shortly afterward, the April storyline containing the controversial number resurfaced and quickly became the focus of the controversy. I was honestly surprised by how fast the discussion shifted.

One impression I've had is: "When Chinese fandom love you, they will bring you greatest love and cover for you. If they hate you, they will wish you death"

Now that PaperGames has announced it will remove Valko, much of the anger within the Chinese fandom appears to have subsided. Now, the Chinese fandom will defend for the company's political stance.

Personally, I think Valko would be released successfully without these controversy if (1) There are more visible and concreate hints that he will appears to make a portion of existing Chinese players will rooting and waiting for him like Caleb and Sylus (2) His face fit mainstream Chinese beauty standard, so the new recruiting fans can overwhelme the 6th LI's anti and defend him (3) Papergame more responsible for LADS's content to avoid controversy, balance things between the characters, less greedy and communicate more with players.

https://x.com/StellaSoraKR/status/1989975324877295896

I am starting to see content creators becoming more spineless and completely sold out with every new gacha release. They are literally turning in to a threat to new gachas if they don't get paid. If a new gacha releases and they don't pay the ccs they completely destroy the game with their reviews and if they get paid they try to defend the clear bad aspects of the game. Now we all know this was like this all the time but I feel like they are trying to kill the games which they don't pay them now.

I want to talk about the arknights endfield gacha and stella sora gacha. They are almost completely the same but stella sora is better because it has a 2% rate. You don't even need weapons in stella sora because they give you free ones with every char release. Now a normal person would think that all these content creators who demolised stella sora in their reviews and made fun about it's gacha system would also do the same to endfield but no they are posting essays about how everyone is doomposting too much about it and it being not that bad. Telling people just to get good and to use their brain while pulling xD

I don't have anything against endfield gacha because I was actually one of the stella sora gacha haters but that game showed me how things can change after the release with generous pull income and events. I am hopeful for endfield as well. But I think upcoming gachas are pretty much in danger because most ccs are more like a threat now. If they don't get paid they completely bash the game in their reviews and try to kill it. What do you guys think about this?

even in my wildest dreams i wouldn't have tought it would get this kind of reception, as of now it stands at "overwhelmingly positive" on steam with 8k positive reviews and gamalytic estimate around 380k downloads

https://www.gamescom.global/en/program/gamescom-award

Link to tweet

Someone has been impersonating Kuro Games and has been sending illegitimate takedown notices towards artists/creators.

Shown here is what an actual DMCA notice looks like that an actual leaker received (stepleaker).

Here are of several victims of the impersonator

One and their art

Two and their art

Three and their art

Four and their art

EDIT: Updated to include more victims and their artwork

As a Day 1 IN player, I wanted to give a bit more context to the previous post regarding the "apology", because things are much much much worse than they appear.

1. It all started (arguably) with the Steam Wishlist rewards. They initially promised 10 pulls for hitting 100,000 wishlists, with a follow up "surprise" reward for hitting 200,000. Instead, they retroactively changed the 100,000 reward to 2 PULLS, and made 200,000 10 pulls, completely removing the original surprise reward. Pic of before/after.

2. The community naturally lost their fucking minds, and after a day of rioting, Infold backed off and gave the 10 pulls + 10 additional pulls as a reward for hitting 200,000.

3. People were already very unhappy with the longest patch so far (1.4) being the patch with the least amount of content, so this did little to appease the community. People are still smoldering.

4. Version 1.5 is teased, and along with it, the Sea of Stars, which is a core aspect of Nikki games. People are super excited, the art looks amazing, they're going to allow people customization via dyeing that lets you change colors of all your clothing. Sentiment is at an all time high after the Developer Live Stream, and people are hyped as hell for 1.5.

5. Unfortunately, as the data miners get to work, some very concerning things are coming to light. Namely that the two new 5 star banners will be 11 pieces each. Previously, most 5 star outfits have been 8-10 stars, with one 11 star outfit in the very first banner. It takes 20 pulls to get ONE 5 star piece, so bumping the outfit count from 9 to 10 to 11 is each a TWENTY PULL INCREASE TO MAX PITY.

6. People cope, saying those are just data mines, it won't be like that, surely they wouldn't, etc. etc. Sentiment is still high, people are still excited.

LAUNCH DAY

1. Absolute fucking mayhem. The entire launch is an absolute disaster, from every angle, whether its monetization, design, stability, you name it.

2. PS5 players are locked out completely. Most mobile players are as well. Those that can get in the game are faced with a blank screen or a crash, and you can't actually make any progress. PC Players are able to get in and play, but everything is an absolute mess. You're dumped immediately into an unskippable tutorial sequence. Everything is a glitchy, laggy mess. Eventually you get dropped into the fabled Sea of Stars, except there's zero content, and the very small tasks that do work, are also a glitchy mess. Oh did I mention this was the huge Co-Op update? You're supposed to be able to optionally interact with other players in the Sea of Stars, except that too is a buggy disaster that doesn't work.

3. On the lore front, the entire story of the game was retconned. Whereas before, you were isekai'd into this fantasy world thanks to your mother's old dress as well as a mysterious connection to a woman named Ena, you are now in a multi-versal slop fest. All of the previous intro story has been removed for new players, and everyone is now part of this multiversal Nikki-verse that is trying to prevent the end of the universe. No context, no elaboration, no explanation. You're just dumped into this retcon as soon as you open the game. Apparently you have already destroyed the world and now are going back in time to save it (or something).

4. On the monetization front, indeed, both banners are 11 pieces, meaning max pity of 220 pulls. And thats only for the base outfit + one recolor. To get the final evolution, you need to pull the entire outfit again --> 440 pulls. But it doesn't stop there. They added more paid items that are just "decorations" meaning they can't be equipped to Nikki as outfit pieces. They added a bathtub they marked up to 70 DOLLARS, and then slapped a -79% tag on it, to pretend they're selling you a deal at 10 dollars. Mind you, there is no housing system yet, so players are furious they keep trying to sell these decoration cosmetics that have barely any usage. At this point, the game feels like a generic chinese gacha clone. You know, the ones with -90% tags slapped on everything. Oh this package was originally $999.99, GREAT VALUE.

5. The hyped dyeing system has 90% of the palette colors locked behind a new currency. The only source for this currency is from the monthly shop, which is super limited. You wouldn't be able to unlock every palette for one 5-star outfit even if you saved this monthly currency for a year. The dyeing palettes must be unlocked for EACH PIECE AT A TIME instead of the whole outfit, and the most desirable colors (pink / black) are locked to 5-star outfits only. The palettes for 4 star and 3 star outfits are far more restrictive, but they also require premium currency to unlock. Of course, the only other way to get palette currency is $$.

6. The "end-game" contest originally was promised to run every 14 days. This is the biggest source of income for F2P. They have been steadily creeping up the length of time each contest runs, directly reducing income for all players. 1.5 was going to have the biggest length of time for each stage, until they slightly backtracked with their apology below.

THE APOLOGY

1. They gave a half-baked, non-apology, saying the 11 pieces were necessary to expand the design of the dresses, but they promise they won't go to 12 or more (unless they do, wink wink, but we promise to tell you first if we want to screw the fans over again). Their explanation makes no sense, as both of the 5 star banners are long dresses that completely cover Nikki's legs, meaning the socks were totally not necessary, and only there to bump the pity count up to 220. For proof, users that were able to logon immediately after maintenance found that even in the intro screen and cutscenes, Nikki is NOT WEARING SOCKS when wearing the new 5 star outfit. Pictures here. So at this point, its obvious they bumped the outfits to 11 pieces, slapped some socks on it, and hoped players would just roll over. Whats even funnier is that before fixing any of the bugs, they pushed a 30mb hotfix to put socks on the Nikki in the cutscene, but players were too fast and caught them anyways.

2. For the end-game contest cycle, their apology says they'll make it bi-monthly (every 16 days), which is still worse than the originally promised 14 day cycle. Anything to fuck the players, even in an apology.

3. Both the CN and Global community are in absolute meltdown mode. Boycotts, riots, you name it. I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff, but at this point, the game and the community is just in absolute shambles. Every other post on the IN subreddit is outrage.