DanMachi: Memoria Freese Japanese version shuts down on June 24

Wright Flyer Studios has announced that they will end their services for the Japanese version of DanMachi: Memoria Freese on June 24. The studio had previously shut down all other regional releases around the end of February. With the last bastion in Japan also set to fall, this mobile game’s activity will cease in its entirety.

The English version’s end-of-service already had a rare occurrence where the studio offered refunds to players who still had unused paid currency by the time the game got shut down. While this of course also applies in Japan since it’s mandated by law, the Japanese version players will have an extra perk that others did not get: an offline memorial archive app.

As a reminder, the Japanese version launched on June 29, 2017, so it would not reach a seventh anniversary as the servers will be shut down five days prior. But seven years is still a pretty long duration for an online-exclusive mobile game to survive, and there are some players who do regularly access it.

But in announcing this game’s end of service, Wright Flyer Studios revealed another unprecedented aspect in which they will hold a crowdfunding session to fund not only the development of the memorial archive app but also to produce a physical memorial book and hold a final live stream. Most other companies that released permanent archives for their outgoing games did not resort to crowdfunding to fund the games’ closing moments, so this is definitely another rare decision from the studio.

We have also translated the end-of-service schedule from the Japanese webpage as follows:

• April 25, 11:00 – Stop purchases of in-app paid currency and monthly premium service, Adjust the end dates for some contents
• April 26, 21:00 – Extraordinary live stream (remote broadcast)
• May 1, 19:00 – Start crowdfunding
• June 21, 23:59 – End crowdfunding
• June 24, 15:00 – End service, stop usages of in-app paid currency, and start applications for refunds of unused paid currency
• June 24, 18:00 – Start service for memorial app