Japanese illustrator and game developer Viv announced on May 13 that their psychological horror visual novel This Game is Not Real will no longer be releasing on Steam. The title’s Steam store page appears to have been delisted, with 24,000 Wishlists going down the drain for the developer.
Originally slated for launch in Q2 of 2026 on Steam, This Game is Not Real tells a psychedelic meta story depicting the obsessive and destructive relationship between two male game creators. In an unconventional twist, the player takes on the role of the “game” being developed by one of the slightly delusional developers. Through point-and-click exploration sections and story sections, you converse with the developer and help him debug his project. As you go, you’ll gradually learn about his past through memory fragments hidden within the project’s data, and guide him towards completing the game. Depicting mature themes like violence, self-harm, murder and sexual content, This Game is Not Real is intended for ages 18 and over.
According to the announcement made by Viv on X, due to This Game is Not Real “not meeting Steam’s release criteria,” they have decided to release the game on domestic platforms DLsite and BOOTH instead. The issue with the Steam version does not seem to be technical, but related to the game’s contents. In response to commenters, Viv joked that the adult men they depicted in the game were “too cute” for the platform, and admitted that they were apprehensive from the start about whether the game’s sexual scenes would cause issue. “I’m a gambler,” they say.
Thankfully, This Game is Not Real is still coming to DLsite and BOOTH later this month, albeit these versions of the game will be available only in Japanese at launch. Viv has commented that they plan to add official support for other languages sometime in the future, with fan made translation patches also a welcome option in the meantime.
