From reaching 200,000 concurrent domestic players upon launch to being deemed a financial failure and prematurely shut down, Bandai Namco’s anime MMORPG Blue Protocol has had its fair share of highs and lows in the span of a bit less than two years. In an effort to keep the IP alive and put to use its assets, Chinese developer BOKURA (Shanghai Bokura Network Technology) decided to take matters in their own hands, announcing Star Resonance, a successor of Blue Protocol, for a 2025 overseas release. However, Japanese fans have been pointing out that Star Resonance-related content is region locked in Japan, expressing concern over the fact that a Japanese release of the game still hasn’t been announced.
The overseas release of Star Resonance will be handled by A Plus Games, a publisher based in Japan, however, due to the publisher being different for Taiwanese and Hong-Kong servers, the game is currently locked in those regions on Steam. As pointed out on a Japanese Blue Protocol fan blog, alongside many Southeast Asian countries, South Korea and Japan have also been found on the list of blocked regions. The official website for Star Resonance is also currently blocked in Japan, and at the time of writing, there has been no news on whether and when to expect the Japanese release of the game.
It’s important to note that the original Blue Protocol has never had an official Western release (although it was planned) – the MMORPG reached 200,000 concurrent players and over 600,000 registrations upon launch, breaking Bandai Namco’s records, and it was all thanks to its dedicated Japanese player base. That’s why it’s completely understandable that some players are feeling worried or even a little bit betrayed about the game’s revival potentially not being available to its biggest fanbase.
However, as the publisher for the English release is a Japanese company, many are hoping that they will soon announce some good news for Japanese fans as well. According to the blog, rumors have been floating around about the Chinese version of the game getting an earlier release date compared to other countries, which has been a trend with live-service games in recent years. However, none of this has been officially confirmed yet.
Blue Protocol: Star Resonance is scheduled for global release in 2025 for PC (Steam/Epic Games Store), iOS and Android.
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