Today Exnoa and KMS revealed a brand-new Muv-Luv game, titled Muv-Luv Girls Garden.
The game was teased a few days ago, and today we certainly get to see more as the pre-registration campaign begins on PC browsers and Android, but there appears to be a lot left unsaid.
First of all, the connection with the previous Muv-Luv games is, on the surface, very elusive, as the game has a completely new cast of characters. It’s described as follows.
“Based on the visual novels “Muv-Luv” and “Muv-Luv Alternative,” which have sold over 800,000 copies cumulatively, the game’s worldview was created by Hayato Tashiro, a founding member of âge who has directed and produced the Muv-Luv series in the past.
The mecha design will be done by Wataru Inada [Editor’s Note: also known as Ko Inaba], who worked on “Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury,” “Grendizer U” and “Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX,” and the character design is by Siino/Pro-p, among others.”
We also get a hint at the story, and that’s where things start to get interesting.
“In the depths of the Earth, there is a world where reason is distorted. Gravity has gone haywire, and life jas been reduced to an abominable distortion.
Once you step into the eternal abyss that consumes everything, the name of the abyss is “Maze”.The commander, his memory taken away, and the girls chosen by fate, they head for the Maze, bound by a curse in the name of hope.
But they do not know yet that this world itself, that is also the abyss, is the answer to a distant “question.”
Now, this certainly sounds a lot more like the Muv-Luv we know. As a matter of fact, if you have played Muv-Luv Alternative and you think about what is deep under the surface of the Earth, the description feels rather terrifying.
That being said, the first trailer is definitely much more “reassuring.” There isn’t even a TSF mecha in sight, despite the fact that there is explicitly a rather well-known mecha designer involved.
This is Muv-Luv after all, so we can expect to have our expectations subverted.
Below, you can also take a glimpse at what the gameplay looks like. The game’s genre is described as “Fully automatic idle RPG.” Of course, it’s free-to-play, and you can even already pull some “pre-registration gacha” after you pre-register.
For the moment, the game is entirely in Japanese, and I don’t exactly expect an English localization any time soon, or ever. Although weirder things have happened, and this game is certainly weird in its own ways.
It’s certainly interesting that this is all happening the day after the closure of the series’ previous mobile game, Muv-Luv Dimensions, which was shut down yesterday, July 30.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Muv-Luv franchise, it was created by âge and it’s mostly focused on sci-fi visual novels that debuted in Japan in 2003.
The original game for PC (which actually includes two visual novels, Muv-Luv Extra and Unlimited) was followed by Muv-Luv Alternative, completing the original trilogy in 2006. It’s considered by many to be one of the best visual novels ever written.
The trilogy was ported to several platforms, including PS3, Xbox 360, PS Vita, Steam, and recently Nintendo Switch, and it was finally localized in English in 2016 following a very successful Kickstarter campaign.
Several additional visual novels have since expanded the franchise’s universe, and we also have games featuring different genres like the action RPG Project MIKHAIL: A Muv-Luv War Story and the upcoming simulation RPG Muv-Luv Tactics.
Incidentally, the enhanced edition of another of âge’s most popular visual novels, Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, which is widely considered Muv-Luv’s prequel, has recently been released on Steam with an English localization for the first time.
Recently, the creators of the series revealed a fairly extensive roadmap of games aiming to revitalize the series.
