Bad news for Naruto and One Piece fans. Bandai Namco has decided to cancel or indefinitely pause multiple games involving both properties. Even a project commissioned by Nintendo has been scrapped.
The reason behind their decision, as is usual in the gaming industry recently, is layoffs. Bloomberg reports that "lackluster demand" has forced Bandai to cut their workforce, shelving multiple upcoming projects as a result.
A representative for the company stated to Bloomberg: "Our decisions to discontinue games are based on comprehensive assessments of the situation."
Bandai invested hard in mobile gaming. Sadly, that's been a fruitless effort. Gacha game Tales of the Rays was just shut down this past July. It was based on the acclaimed Tales franchise but failed to capture an audience.
The biggest flop is without a doubt Blue Protocol, an MMO that will be discounted in January 2025. Amazon Games was in charge of porting to the West, scheduled to release in late 2024, with the project canceled following an abysmal performance.
It's not all completely awful for the company. Just last week Bandai released Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero to glowing reviews, and more importantly, commercial success. Bandai and developer Spike Chunsoft confirmed the game had sold over 3 million copies in its first 24 hours.
It feels bittersweet, as I see both sides of the coin. It's always painful to see more developers losing their jobs and exciting projects being canceled. Especially when you consider the potential now that Sparking! Zero has proven that there's still a market for well-developed anime arena fighters.
Sadly, it seems Naruto and One Piece fans will have to be patient for the time being. It could always get worse, at least they're not suffering like Jujutsu Kaisen fans who received the awful Cursed Clash early in the year.
By the looks of things, that could very well be the one and only Bandai title they'll be getting.