Not every free-to-play mobile JRPG can be a Genshin Impact, or even a Dragalia Lost. Such is the case of Bandai Namco’s latest cash grab using the Tales of name.

Bandai Namco has announced the sudden closure of Tales of Luminaria, which came out on 3rd November of last year. The mobile game will stop service cease to exist on 19 July. The game will keep its doors and online service open until then, though eight months in service is considerably short; even shorter than Tales of Crestoriia which shut down recently on 6 February. Bandai Namco however did state a plan to release an offline archive version of Luminaria for existing players to reminisce about the characters and the soundtrack.

Why Did It Shut Down?

It is a shame that a pretty game like Tales of Luminaria with all-new characters and a decent score from Go Shiina has to shut down. But speaking from personal experience, the game doesn’t seem to have any staying power, a surefire gacha mechanic to line up Bandai Namco’s coffers, and has pretty basic gameplay, as well as the fact that it ran like ass on most phones unless you dial down the settings. And the loading in-between stage transitions and going to menus is just mind-numbingly tedious. And the fact that a mothership Tales of game is purchasable -Tales of Arise- might have a lot to do with the faltering of a mobile game Tales title that can be perceived as “inferior” to a heavy JRPG experience.

Check out the full farewell message from the Bandai Namco team:

As always, thank you all for playing Tales of Luminaria.

We regret to announce that the service for Tales of Luminaria will be sunset on July 19, 2022 PDT.
As the first completely original mobile title in the “Tales of” series, our sincere intent was to make this game fun and, by taking on various challenges, to bring “Tales of” to a wider audience around the world, not only Japan. Additionally, we have tried our best to make this service playable over a long time, encouraged by the supportive comments and feedback we have received on SNS.

However, we could not do enough, and we sincerely apologize to all those who have supported and played Tales of Luminaria.

?About Future Episodes

Weekly episode distribution will end with this announcement. We apologize for the sudden notice, as you may have been expecting a new announcement of the next episode. We unfortunately will not be able to fully depict the fate of the 21 heroes and must end the episodes in the middle of the story. Even more, some characters will be left without getting an episode 2. We are very sorry for leaving these stories untold.
Even though we could not complete all the storylines for each character, we have been considering whether there is any way to bring closure to their story, even if only slightly. With that thought, we have prepared a special “Episode Final,” which takes place right before the anime Tales of Luminaria: The Fateful Crossroad. This episode focuses on why Hugo eventually sided with the Empire. We truly regret not being able to provide full closure to this story, but we hope you will enjoy this “Episode Final.”

?Regarding the Archiving of Works

We are considering archiving the costumes, designs, illustrations, etc. of the characters released during the service out of application as a “digital archive,” so that players can continue to experience and reminisce about Luminaria’s universe and its characters even after the service ends. We are also working on a soundtrack for the in-game background music.

We will reach out again as soon as we have more details.

[…]

Finally, we would like to sincerely thank you for all of your support of Tales of Luminaria.?We apologize again for not living up to your expectations and having to announce that the service will be sunset. Although there is only a short period of time remaining, we hope that you will enjoy this game to the end. Thank you.

– The entire Tales of Luminaria Team