Wizardry Variants Daphne performs strongly on mobile ahead of Steam release, exceeding developer’s expectations

Wizardry Variants Daphne has exceeded developer Drecom’s expectations, making 2.1 billion yen since its October 2024 launch on smartphones. A PC (Steam) version of the game is currently in the works. 

Originally created by the American game company Sir-Tech in the early 80s, the Wizardry series played a huge role in shaping the RPG genre of video games. The series also became very popular in Japan. Japanese developer Drecom has owned the Wizardry IP since 2020.

The latest title in the long-running series, Wizardry Variants Daphne, launched for smartphones on October 15, 2024. The game combines Wizardry’s classic dungeon-crawling gameplay with a dev team of big names. The music is by Final Fantasy Tactics and XII composer Hitoshi Sakamoto, with Fire Emblem’s Yusuke Kozaki handling the character design, and Katsuya Terada (of Zelda and Tekken fame) designing the monsters. Wizardry Variants Daphne’s development received 500 million yen in funding from the Japan’s government’s Development Bank of Japan (DBJ).  

Drecom’s financial results for the first 9 months of the fiscal year ending March 2025 indicate that Wizardry Variants Daphne accounted for around a quarter of their overall net sales of 8.2 billion yen (source: GameBiz). Although the game is free-to-play, it has in-app purchases. 

Despite the new Wizardry game’s runaway success, Drecom’s consolidated financial results showed a total loss of 823 million yen. Perhaps the much-anticipated Steam version of the game (release date TBA) will help them get back into the black. Drecom intends to market the PC version of the game predominantly to players outside of Japan. 

Drecom’s financial results for the first 9 months of the fiscal year ending in March 2025 were as follows: 

Net Sales: 8.2 billion yen (up 7.4% year-on-year) 
Operating loss: 26 million yen (789 million yen profit recorded in the previous year）
Recurring loss: 78 million yen (729 million yen profit in the previous year)  
Net loss: 823 million yen (97 million yen profit in the previous year)   

Wizardry Variants Daphne is available now on iOS and Android (free-to-play with in-app purchases). A PC (Steam) version was announced last October, release date TBA.