It's rare for me to express true astonishment in writing, but I think I speak for most people when I say I was genuinely shocked to learn that Tribe Nine is set to be shuttered. According to a recent news post, the servers for Tribe Nine will be shut off on November 27th, with any upcoming updates now cancelled. Additionally, the End of Service (EOS) has been announced, paid Enigma Entities will be refunded, and in-game purchases will be halted.
This marks an acrimonious end for Tribe Nine, which just a couple of months ago celebrated over ten million downloads. Based on the anime series of the same name and featuring art by Danganronpa veteran Rui Komatsuzaki, the game included regular Action RPG (ARPG) gameplay alongside the so-called Xtreme Baseball boss battles that fans of the series will recognize.
The unceremonious axing of Tribe Nine continues a rather unpleasant trend over the last few years, where numerous games have been cancelled after less than a year in service. For many fans of these games, it can feel pretty hopeless to become invested in any new releases, considering the EOS threat that looms over them.
Tribeless
Considering that Rui Komatsuzaki's art has graced the well-received Hundred Line -Last Defence Academy- on other platforms, there seems little reason why Tribe Nine would be cancelled on this service. However, being ditched so soon after launch may backfire on developer Akatsuki Games.
With another anime-based release on the horizon, Kaiju No.8: The Game, they're likely banking on bringing in fans of the existing series. But casual players may see Akatsuki's track record and hesitate at the idea of the same thing happening again. Either way, for fans of Tribe Nine, it's not exactly a happy Friday.
But, there's still a lot of great releases out there to keep you going. Why not check out our latest feature covering the top five new mobile games to try this week on mobile for some of our top picks?
