The gaming industry, perhaps more so than ever before in history, is in rather dire straits. It is assailed on all fronts by an unending flurry of problems for which it doesn’t seem to have adequate responses. Fortunately, unlikely games are seemingly coming up with perfect solutions to some of their most stubborn issues. Take, for example, the unassuming and plucky JRPG, one which doesn’t receive much buzz beyond the occasional recommendation from a diehard fan here and there, that has all of a sudden offered a logical solution to one of the gaming industry’s most prevalent problems.
Said unassuming JRPG is the lesser-known yet nevertheless beloved Blue Reflection. Its new collection is one of the best upcoming JRPGs of 2026, and something that any discerning fan should be eagerly anticipating. However, more importantly, this collection features a fix for the current plague of impermanence that is afflicting the gaming industry, specifically mobile and permanently online games. It could be the solution we’ve been hoping for, but it may not be one that developers are willing to implement, even though it makes perfect logical sense.
One of the biggest issues affecting the gaming industry currently, aside from the obvious instability of its development model and the increasing prices forcing it to become a luxury rather than a hobby, is the impermanence of a lot of its core experiences. Simply put, a large portion of free-to-play games, especially, but paid premium experiences too, do not last and are eventually pulled from storefronts and rendered unplayable. Just recently, huge PlayStation games have been delisted, Elder Scrolls Blades was pulled by Bethesda, and Highguard proved to be a monumental flop mere weeks after launch. This problem affects the mobile game industry rather profusely, with numerous titles being pulled after dedicated fans had invested huge swathes of money into unlocking new skins, characters, and more.
This isn’t a new problem, but it is an increasingly prevalent one that is in desperate need of addressing. The issue is that these games are online-only experiences running on servers that are costly to maintain. As a result, the moment they lose profitability, their developers pull support and eventually the servers keeping them alive, rendering them unplayable. This is a problem that cannot be solved by merely keeping these servers going in perpetuity, as that is an unrealistic expectation. However, as evidenced by the aforementioned Blue Reflection Quartet collection, there is a simpler and ultimately more affordable solution that could remove the issue of imperenance in gaming forever.
If you have no idea what the criminally underrated JRPG Blue Reflection is, then don’t panic. It is a series of school-sim titles that see a group of magically-infused girls save the world from impending doom. They’re great, good fun, and perfect for scratching that Persona itch. Crucially, between the first and second mainline games, its developer, Koei Tecmo, released a mobile title called Blue Reflection Sun. It came out in 2022 and was delisted in 2024, making it unplayable. However, Blue Reflection Quartet, a new collection that bundles enhanced versions of the two console games in addition to a retelling of the game’s anime, also includes a complete remake of the mobile game. Essentially, Koei Tecmo has taken the once online-only mobile experience and made it fully playable offline.
Sure, a ground-up remake of a mobile game seems a tad costly (although Koei Tecmo is using existing systems and assets to rebuild it), but it is certainly cheaper than keeping server costs alive and ostensibly creates a new revenue stream that was inaccessible before. We’ve seen Nintendo do this with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Square Enix pull it off rather successfully with Octopath Traveler 0. It isn’t necessarily new, but Blue Reflection further illustrates why it is so effective. You’re enticing newcomers who were put off by the free-to-play model to finally check it out, and getting existing customers to pay again in order to continue accessing an experience they love. Sure, it’s not exactly the most morally ethical solution, but it is hard to deny that it benefits everyone one way or another.
Of course, a simpler and more cost-effective solution would be to design online-only experiences with offline play in mind. Take the recent flop Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a largely single-player focused experience with live service elements unnecessarily and haphazardly implemented into its core gameplay loop. That game was playable solo, but, at launch, required an online connection. Its developer, Rocksteady Studios, implemented an offline mode shortly afterward in order to preserve it indefinitely, something that, while certainly requiring effort, was likely not too complicated to add considering the game’s existing single-player structure.
Most gacha games released nowadays are single-player focused affairs. Genshin Impact, perhaps the most popular in the genre, is playable entirely solo, despite its constant need for an online connection. While I’m certainly not expecting them to feature offline modes during active development, as that would infringe on their live service features, it makes sense to have one ready to go the moment interest wanes and the revenue generated simply isn’t enough to sustain the servers. Such a mode would have saved the practically entirely single-player Elder Scrolls Blades from total annihilation, or even console games like The Crew.
What baffles me is how developers can make such beloved games and not want to preserve them in the long run. Sure, an offline mode takes resources to create and isn’t as simple as switching a toggle in the game’s engine. However, investing said resources and time into creating one not only ensures that your art remains accessible for all time, but can also, such as in the case of Pocket Camp, Octopath Traveler 0, and Blue Reflection Quartet, bring in even more money long after development has finished. I would hope that more games like Blue Reflection Sun will be developed with the option to switch it to an offline experience, should things go south, to give fans the option of continuing playing long after development has ceased.
Of course, this isn’t a total fix for all types of video games. Multiplayer titles would need solo-focused modes added, which requires developing bots for competitive shooters, for example. That’s considerably more effort, and while I certainly feel it is worthwhile, studios may consider it a waste of time and money if it feels like even a one-time purchase offline version wouldn’t sell. Highguard, for example, likely wouldn’t have benefited from such a model. However, Blue Reflection Quartet’s approach to recreating dead mobile games to preserve them for future generations, or building an online solo game with the intention to switch it to an offline one in the future, feel like logical and cost-effective solutions to a increasingly dangerous issue that threatens to both lessen the value of video games as art and rob players of experiences they love.
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