Key, the Japanese studio behindKanon, Air, Clannad,and many other legendary Japanese games, revealed their next project,Heaven Burns Red. The biggest surprise there is thatHeaven Burns Redisn’t a visual novel, but an RPG coming to smartphones in 2020. No information was shared yet about whether the game will have microtransactions or not, but it’s highly likely it will and thatHeaven Burns Redis a mobage.Heaven Burns Redis a joint project between Key andWright Flyers Studios. WFS is a company behind multiple mobage such asWild Arms Million Memories,andDanmachi Memoria Freese.ÂKey’s co-founder Jun Maeda, who penned most of their games and multi media projects such asAngel Beats, is the original story and main scenario writer forHeaven Burns Red. Meanwhile, the original character designs were by Na-Ga, Fumuyun, and Maroyaka. The character design and the visual above were handled by Yuugen, who worked on Gust’sAtelierseries. The songs are by Jun Maeda and Yanaginagi.In a message shared onHeaven Burns Red’s official site, Jun Maeda most notably mentioned that the culture of playing visual novels on PC is disappearing. As such, Key, to survive, decided to release their next game on smartphones, which have a much higher player base. However, Jun Maeda stressed out that the essence of their games is still the same, and thatHeaven Burns Redwill make you laugh, emphasize and ultimately cry for its characters.Jun Maeda also mentioned that new vocal songs from the game will be released once a month until it launches sometime in 2020.
An official twitter account was also opened forHeaven Burns Red, and a hashtag message campaign is ongoing to win a Shikishi signed by Jun Maeda, Yuugen, and Yanaginagi.
This is pretty interesting as more and more Japanese doujin studios who started small and made it big thanks to visual novel masterpieces are turning to the mobile market. Nitroplus, the studio behindSaya no Uta, Phantom,andDemonbane, recently announced its 20th-anniversary game:Warau Ars Notoria. And it’s a mobage coming in Spring 2020. Another example is Aquaplus, which launched Utawarerumono Lost Flag on November 26, a mobage for the Utawarerumono franchise. The studios simply cannot afford to ignore the mobile market and are all striving to survive while keeping their identity.
The last visual novel Key did isSummer Pockets,which is available in Japan on mobile, Switch and PC. A fan-translation patch covering half the game’s content is available on PC.
I’m personally still waiting for the sequel episodes of theAngel Beatsgame to release one day.
