Blue Protocol Officially Gets The Axe, Sunsetting In Japan, Global Release Cancelled

When Blue Protocol actually released into testing in Japan, all eyes were on how the MMORPG would perform in its home country. Bandai Namco certainly wanted these tests and launch to go well as they had a deal inked with Amazon Games to bring the game worldwide. Blue Protocol was hyped up and many were eagerly awaiting news each morning.

Then we started to hear that the MMO may not have been as well received in Japan as Bandai Namco had hoped. That probably meant it wasn't doing all that well financially, either, although we didn't have exact confirmation of the game's financial performance yet. Suddenly, news on Blue Protocol was slower to release and we didn't see the streams from the team as often.

In June, the team hyped up their upcoming update as a "see, nothing is wrong" campaign, but most were pretty skeptical at that point.

They had good reason to be based on today's news. In an announcement on the Blue Protocol site, the project was totally shut down. The currently running Japanese servers will close on January 18, 2025 and the plans for a global release have been scrapped. I have been trying to get answers from my Amazon Games contacts on the game since Bandai Namco's disastrous financials back in June with no reply, so I'm not surprised at all.

"We have worked hard to prepare for the release; however, we have come to the conclusion that it will not be possible to provide a service that satisfies all of you. We deeply apologize for the sudden announcement," says part of the post.

While the post, also posted to the western site, gives no specifics on the decision, it does say that they enjoyed working with Amazon Games...so I guess there's that.

I can't say I'm surprised by the news at all given the last few months, but I will say that when I tested Blue Protocol, I actually thought they were doing some cool things in the game. It still needed work, sure, but it was in early testing so I figured they would still be putting in the work. I am a little sad to see it go.