Blue Protocol gets the funeral every dying live service thing deserves, a massive hours-long rave with anime avatars busting a perfectly synced-up move
More live service games are being killed than ever before at the moment, or at least it feels that way. Lots of publishers are continuing to try and take as many swings as possible at landing a big home run online cash cow, but it’s a tough market, so the ones that don’t catch on in a huge way often end up being viewed as just losses to cut.
The result is shutdowns like MMORPG Blue Protocol saw earlier this week, when it reached the end date publisher Bandai Namco set out last summer – before the game could even make it to the west – earlier this week. Luckily, the game’s hardcore Japanese playerbase was ready to see it off in fashion. With a huge dance party in a town square.
As reported by Japanese site Nlab (via Automaton), the countdown to Blue Protocol’s demise on January 18 saw an improptu mass rave kick off and run for what looks to be at least four and a half hours.
Twitter user michsuzu shared a couple of videos of them and their BP brethren in action, standing in nice lines and triggering dancing animations on their avatars in perfectly synced-up fashion. The backing music was the game’s whimsical flute tunes, but to be honest, I think you could edit any classic banger over it and it’d still work, be it a bit of The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, or even Faithless’ Insomnia.
The game’s starting town, Asterliese, was the site of this tearful busting of moves in honour of a soon-to-be-departed brother, and it looks to have run from at least 5:30 PM Japan time until 10PM, which is when the game shut down, as you can see in the second clip.
How did it end? Well, with a farewell message thanking players for being there til’ the end, and then a final spasm as the servers disconnected. RIP, Blue Protocol. You lived a weird ass life, that’s to be sure, and you’ll not soon be forgotten by those who strutted and twirled mounfully as you were lowered into the ground and your server soul floated away to the great live service beyond.
In a suitably weird twist given this game’s lifespan, Automaton reports that this isn’t techincally even the proper end for Blue Protocol – it’s set to be “re-incarnated” as a new MMORPG called Star Resonance, developed by Tencent-backed Chinese studio Bokura.
So, er, RIP Blue Protocol? You ‘died’ as you lived – in kinda bizarre fashion.