This Week in Mobile Games

Once More Unto the Bleach, My Friends

Hello, and welcome once again to the latest column. Amidst the many and varied anniversaries, summer showdowns, and big-time limited-time events going on right now, I've been at something of a loss as to what to put my finite focus on besides work-related stuff. Luckily, sometimes an opportunity comes up that lets me check out something new in the name of continued employment. 

That something also happens to be an old fave of mine: Bleach!

It's time again for:

Bleach Mirrors High's Closed Beta Shows Glimpses of Something Original

I've been spending some time with Bandai Namco's ongoing closed beta test of Bleach Mirrors High, a new mobile action-RPG set in the world of Tite Kubo's legendary manga and anime, Bleach. I followed Bleach way back when it was, to most anglosphere viewers, one of Weekly Shonen Jump's "Big Three" series, fighting for adolescent mindshare alongside Naruto and One Piece. 

I was on Team Bleach, mainly because the show and Kubo's signature style grasped a particular, admittedly juvenile, understanding of "cool" that I saw as extremely appealing. To use some younger slang, it understood "hype moments and aura" like nothing else at the time, at least by my lights. 

That same understanding has shown through in the recent Bleach revival of the last several years, heralded by Studio Pierrot's production of the Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War anime, which kicked off its fourth (and final) season just this week.

Indeed, the first impression Mirrors High gives off is that of a knowing and direct outgrowth of the aesthetic choices present throughout the franchise's latest anime series. Though the shows are all naturally based on Tite Kubo's manga work, The Thousand-Year Blood War debuted some distinct shifts in presentation. The crew at Pierrot favored high-contrast black-and-white imagery to emphasize the aesthetic conflict between the Soul Reapers and Quincies (i.e., black kimono versus white military outfits), but also loved employing bold, screen-filling, high-impact typography and splashes of bright color to set off the monochrome pop.

That look is threaded throughout Mirrors High, which takes care to introduce virtually every speaking character with a high-contrast identifying splash screen. Insofar as narrative goes, Mirrors High also features a main scenario that involves Kubo himself, and spins directly out of the (upcoming) conclusion of The Thousand-Year Blood War (and by extension, the main Bleach manga proper). The characters all refer to the war as six months in the past, with both the Soul Society and the World of the Living in some state of recovery following its traumatic events. 

The story of Bleach Mirrors High is focused on the journey of several entirely new characters, led by a pair of selectable protagonists: Shirin Migishima (the boy) and Shirane Sanari (the girl). You can choose between them at the start, and the other becomes an NPC with a key role in the story (though you can still change back and forth as you please). The first chapter of the main story is available in the closed beta, and keeps things rather vague. It opens with an anime cutscene showing longtime Bleach heroine Rukia Kuchiki attacking Ichigo Kurosaki for some unstated reason related to the fate of the three worlds. Afterwards, things quickly shift focus to your selected protagonist, who seems to be a human wandering around Karakura Town, dazed with amnesia.

Before long, you roll into a capsule version of the opening incidents of Bleach proper, encountering a squad of low-level Soul Reapers (the three original characters revealed earlier this month), and fighting a suspiciously strong Hollow. In a moment of desperation, you even attempt to recreate the stunt that established Ichigo as a substitute Soul Reaper in the first place (stabbing yourself with a Soul Reaper's zanpakuto sword), only to have it...explode and fail, seemingly killing your character. Of course, if that were the end, Mirrors High would be a fun (if late) April Fools' gag. Alas, you, for some mysterious reason, immediately remember that you've been a Soul Reaper all along, awaken to your power, and quickly dispatch the offending Hollow, then wake up in your room at Soul Reaper academy, ready to begin the day as a rookie Soul Reaper.

Despite there not being much to speak of in the available narrative, this main scenario has me intrigued, because more than almost any major shonen manga, even its former Big Three rivals, Bleach is the most annoyingly obsessed with simply replaying the hits. Virtually every Bleach game to date has focused on retelling the manga story over and over, usually ending right at Aizen's defeat. 

Bar notable exceptions like KLab's Bleach Brave Souls, which is currently about halfway through its rendition of The Thousand-Year Blood War, Mirrors High promises a new, original story set in the aftermath of everything we've seen before, and has already gone a bit further by introducing some real original characters. That's definitely something, considering that the long-rumored "Hell Arc" of the Bleach manga (introduced in a one-shot chapter nearly five years ago) is taking its sweet time in development. Of course, it remains to be seen how much we'll actually get out of this main scenario. 

As mentioned, there's very little to what's available in the beta, narratively speaking. What's left to chew on is a solid but familiar anime gacha game experience, one that's almost pleasantly quaint, considering the current, triple-A-led era in gacha development. Absent its original character creation and the thrill of being able to customize your very own zanpakuto, Mirrors High plays a bit like Dragon Ball Legends. It uses real-time RPG combat by tying your party of three characters' actions to a series of randomly drawn action cards that correspond to a familiar elemental triangle of advantage. Swiping back and forth on the vertically oriented screen moves your character around, and combat is mostly a game of managing your spacing and countering enemy cards with the appropriate elements.

To get new characters beyond the initial four (your protagonist, plus Gin, Maiko, and Naru), you'll roll for them on gacha banners. The initial banner is nice in that it allows you to re-roll freely until you're satisfied with what you've gotten, and normal game activities provide a steady trickle of gems to power future rolls. One wrinkle is that each character has multiple rarity tiers available, with higher rarities of the same character coming with better stats, abilities, and in some cases, enhanced character art. You'll find yourself cursing your luck when you get a 1-star Yoruichi while you were hoping to snag her 3- or 4-star iteration, and so on. You can also earn character "shards" to eventually upgrade them and unlock some new characters, so there should be a way to (theoretically) earn a fair chunk of the roster just by playing the game (a good comfort, seeing as the drop rate for higher-rarity characters is on the lower side in this beta).

That said, aside from the three original characters, nearly everyone I saw in my limited time with the game's banners is a familiar face. I started taking on the in-game PVP arena matches (where you face off against other players' parties) and the event-style battle roulettes with a team led by a high-rarity Bambietta Basterbine backed up by a 4-Star Byakuya Kuchiki. 

At the moment, how much Bleach Mirrors High will be able to capture me, especially compared to currently running competitors like the Crunchyroll-managed Soul Resonance, which has fancier brawler gameplay to enjoy, will depend on how well it pulls off its new, original story. There's also a fair amount of grumbling in the community about onerously long cooldown timers on the game's PVP system, which temporarily locks out characters you've already used as a balance measure. But there's still time for the developers to make adjustments, and if things go well, Bleach fans will have a bite-sized way to get more new Bleach stories out in the wild.

Maia Meltdown Might Not Be Mobile, But Has a Fun Teaser Trailer All the Same

One odd consequence of free-to-play mobile games well and truly entering their triple-A era is that you can't always tell when a new game is even mobile at all. That's the current case with the intriguing mecha fighter, Maia Meltdown. Developed by Wildwind Studio and teased with a glossy CG trailer, the game debuted its first gameplay reveal on July 14th, and it looks quite good, in that hyper-detailed, brightly panel-lined way.

Wildwind hasn't announced platforms for Maia just yet, but the gameplay reveal teaser went on to show off a fun fake-out that played on many players' anxieties that a new, good-looking anime gacha game will have a combat system more reminiscent of the previous wave of mobile and gacha games, when every battle system seemed derivative of the likes of Granblue Fantasy, Fate/Grand Order, or other fairly lightweight turn-based RPGs. Following the fancy teaser, the screen turns into a parody of those very styles, with super-deformed mecha facing off on a scrolling timeline against similarly chibi-fied enemies, a system reminiscent of the beloved-but-familiar visual style of Super Robot Wars. 

The screen quickly transitions to something altogether fancier, though, showing off a real-time action game that looks for all the world like a fighter evoking the 3D arena battles of the Gundam EX VS series, or a faster-paced take on Sega classic Virtual On.

While Maia: Meltdown doesn't have an official platform list yet (though the trailer features prominent PC keys, making that a safe bet), that play on mobile gamers' anxieties about wanting to play "real" games on their phones tells me that a mobile debut is likely.

Zenless Zone Zero Celebrates Its 2nd Year With The Long Goodbye

The next regular update for Zenless Zone Zero will go live on January 29th, and bring with it the official commencement of celebrations for the game's 2nd anniversary. It's been a period of fairly big developments for the game, all things considered. Just last month the 3.0 update dropped, beginning ZZZ's third season and adding the floating steampunk island of Rosecaelifer to the metropolitan environs of New Eridu. Now comes The Long Goodbye, a simultaneous main campaign update, anniversary update, and summer seasonal bash.

And, like many a HoYoVerse anniversary update, they add a new, slightly familiar-looking character to the roster. The marquee playable agent for the 3.1 update is Remielle Dan, a first-generation Void Hunter and the first character to use the new Lumiflux elemental attribute. She's also got a pink bob and a vaguely angel-themed visual style, complete with jet-powered wings, which led a few miHoYo game fans to liken Remielle to Elysia, a similarly pink Honkai Impact 3rd character who has a Honkai Star Rail variant, Cyrene. That being said, unlike the more direct connections between the Honkai games, Remielle seems more of an "expy," i.e., an aesthetically similar character that comes from things like having a house style or preference rather than a direct reference or other thematically significant connection.

Besides Remielle, players will also be able to throw their polychromes at Sigrid, who looks like an Umamusume that decided to walk the path of the warrior (or a lost Arknights Kazimierzian, perhaps). Players looking for a do-over on some missed units can also look forward to rerun banners for Dialyn, Yuzuha, and Harumasa.

Alongside new characters come new modes. A new repeatable, seemingly extraction-style game mode called Enigma of the Labyrinth will challenge players to maneuver bangboo Eous around a Hollow, procure supplies, and evacuate before a timer runs out. While that mode is permanent, a temporary summer-themed event will give players a chance to score a free summer outfit for Lucy, or plop down some cash to pick up swimwear for Remielle and Sigrid.

As part of the 2nd anniversary celebration, players will receive free currency to roll with and avail themselves of a free S-Rank agent out of a pool that includes Soldier 0 - Anby, Hugo, Trigger, Lucia, or the famous rat woman Jane Doe. Gacha rollers will get a reprieve for their banner ambitions in the form of Custom Search, a new customizable banner that lets players configure a wishlist of up to six S-rank characters from a pool that includes limited ones, allowing them to target their rolls to get who they want (a common pain point in a monetization model that includes a lot of limited-time banners).

Finally, HoYoVerse also promised a crossover with fellow HoYoVerse game Honkai: Star Rail, planned for "Winter 2026" (putting it anywhere between December this year and early March 2027). A teaser for the crossover can be found in the form of Star Rail mascot Pom-Pom roaming around the Sixth Street hub area in Zenless Zone Zero. 

Cross-HoYoVerse collaboration events aren't a new thing, but they are surprisingly rare for a studio that fully owns so many popular characters. Besides Honkai Impact 3rd adding Genshin Impact's Fischl to its playable cast, plus the many references to be found across universes in terms of character design and lore, it's been rare to see the streams cross directly. Exactly what form the Star Rail x ZZZ crossover will take remains to be seen, though.

Wuthering Waves Goes Full Anime With Elysium Animated Series

One interesting trend in the ascension of Chinese-led media production has been the way game development has risen hand-in-hand with animation. The success of Chinese-produced original animated films is increasingly making the news (big winners like Ne Zha are just one example), but Chinese game publishers and development houses are also taking the step of establishing in-house 2D and 3D animation studios to produce multimedia work. Sometimes the work mainly consists of game trailers or supplementary material to help promote events or spread lore, but places like Yostar Pictures have also produced full adaptations, like the ongoing Arknights anime series seasons.

Kuro Onroad, a new animation-focused brand founded by Wuthering Waves developer Kuro Games, could be going a similar route. They've unveiled plans and a teaser trailer for a new animated series called Wuthering Waves: Elysium. The teaser features a seaside jaunt done much in the style of the existing in-game 3D cutscenes, but little else. Is it an adaptation of the existing story? A promo-focused side series featuring further adventures from popular characters (or teases for new ones)? Or something else entirely? A more detailed unveiling is planned "soon."

Final Fantasy XIV Mobile To Close Up Shop in China, With Global Release Plans Scuppered

While Final Fantasy XIV fans on PC and consoles are basking in the glow of excitement from the latest round of announcements related to next year's Evercold expansion (including in-game raids based on Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy), some Chinese fans are probably mourning the game's mobile prospects being put...on ice.

Tencent-affiliated developer Lightspeed Studios announced on July 17th that it will terminate service for the mobile version of Final Fantasy XIV by September 30, 2026. The message cited "adjustments in business operations and changes in the market environment" that led to "negotiations" with Square Enix to terminate the licensing agreement. The termination also includes killing off plans to release Final Fantasy XIV Mobile worldwide, leaving the game a China-exclusive until its death this September.

Despite FFXIV's popularity as one of the largest MMORPGs operating, it looks like that reputation wasn't enough to get it to break into the mobile side of the market. An announcement citing "market conditions" usually means the game wasn't performing well, so it's anyone's guess what ended up turning off Chinese players from the idea of playing FFXIV while on the go. Perhaps it was the way the game was monetized, as FFXIV Mobile was a free-to-play game that charged for features rather than demanding a monthly subscription. Perhaps Chinese players weren't impressed with the game's visuals, which are on the dated side compared to today's fancier gacha games. Or perhaps FFXIV's play pattern wasn't a good fit for mobile to begin with, given that even the shortest in-game dungeons require a good amount of active teamwork and last quite a while compared to a typical mobile game daily cycle.

Let's close out the column with a few more bits of news:

• Developer Netmarble has relaunched its RPG Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds as a new "global unified service" for all existing players. The new service will offer "migration programs" for existing players that include rewards and currency to help them move over to the new version from the old. What's left unsaid in the press release (and widely said in the community) is that the relaunch is related to Netmarble shutting down the blockchain and NFT-related features of Cross Worlds and relaunching it as a regular, non-crypto title.
• Fate/Grand Order is currently deep within its summer event, BB Presents: Celeb Summer Experience! Dubai's Counterattack. This one will run surprisingly long for a limited-time event, concluding all the way in September. That's because participation is a soft requirement for unlocking the upcoming Ordeal Call III main story chapter. FGO is one of the relatively few ongoing games these days that has fairly strict participation requirements for major story beats, so players will want to throw in a bit if they expect to continue their journey on time.
• Developer Drop Fake has announced a mobile-exclusive free-to-play fighting game called DCKO that pits various DC characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and more against iconic DC villains and antiheroes. While I'm not sure how the prospect of a mobile-exclusive fighter will play out, it's an interesting angle to take. The presentation also reminds me of Netherealms' Injustice series, though with a more cartoon-inspired style and much less brutal violence.
• Honkai: Star Rail is deep into its ongoing Fate/Unlimited Blade Works series crossover event. Players who log on will be able to claim their own copy of Archer (who was introduced in the previous Fate crossover) or the newly added Gilgamesh. Rin Tohsaka is also up on the banner for those with Stellar Jade to spare. Fate fans might notice a whole load of callbacks to specific, deep cuts from both the Fate series lore and from Fate/Grand Order's own takes on Rin (specifically her dual existence as Ishtar).
• Developer Colorful Palette has announced console and mobile ports of its raising sim Volcano Princess, due on July 30th. The console and mobile editions will contain some updates, including improved localization quality and voice acting in Japanese, as well as new story and art content. The existing PC version will get all that new stuff in a free update set for October 2026.

And that'll be it from me! Stay safe, folks, and hope you feel like number one more days than not! I'll see you next time.