Aksys Games and Mikage LLC have announced that they’re working on a new original project. The game is expected to be released sometime in 2021 in North America, with no release date for the other regions of the world currently known.
Little is known about the game at the moment. We know that more information will be given at the Anime Expo 2020 in Los Angeles, California during the Aksys Games panel. This Expo will be from July 2nd to July 5th and will serve as a way for the developers to give a bit more information. Other than that, we know that the release date will be somewhere in 2021, with no clue which quarter of the year it will fall into.
We also know that the game will be released on multiple platforms, including PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, and both the PlayStation 4 and 5. It will also have a VR port, but it’s unknown if it will have a specific VR compatibility.
https://twitter.com/MIKAGE_LLC/status/1121814277625507840?s=20
If you’re unfamiliar with the two, Mikage is a recently formed studio. The development studio was founded by Ryohei Mikage, the former CEO of Imageepoch before declaring bankruptcy. As the CEO of Imageepoch, Mikage had experience working with titles such as Sol Trigger, 7th Dragon, and Stella Glow before the company fell under.
Aksys is known for a variety of games, most recently Criminal Girls X. The title is their 10th-anniversary project for the Criminal Girls series that had launched near the turn of the decade and was a well-known hit, especially in Japan. Primarily released for mobile and PC, it lacked the console capabilities that this upcoming title will feature.
Criminal Girls X is expected to release as a free-to-play version in Japan in February of 2020, with the full version being released a few months later in May 2020. While the focus is on PC and mobile, Mikage has been working to try and secure a PS4 release as well.
It’s nice to see that Aksys and Mikage are keeping several pots on the stove at once. Many may have expected the relatively-small studios to focus on a single well-known IP like Criminal Girls rather than branching out towards another original series. We can also safely say that the upcoming title that they’ve announced isn’t going to be Criminal Girls X, as some have strangely theorized, as the new game is expected to release a full year after the upcoming Criminal Girls title.
Regardless of what theories we may come up with, we’ll have everything confirmed in July at the Anime Expo.
