NieR Reincarnation will end service in April

Yoko Taro’s NieR series has been synonymous with live service crossovers since the release of NieR Automata. Everything from Final Fantasy XIV to Final Fantasy Brave Exvius has seen the likes of 2B make an appearance, so it’s tragically ironic that NieR’s own live service game, NieR Reincarnation, is closing its doors soon.

An announcement was posted to the official NieR Reincarnation website confirming that the game will officially end service on April 29, 2024. As a small consolation, NieR Reincarnation will continue to receive updates in the interim. In addition to boosting item drop rates and giving out pulls from its gacha every day, the game’s “The People and the World” story arc will see its final chapter on March 28.

This may give some people déjà vu of how Dragalia Lost ended service in 2022, which also coincided with the conclusion of its story. Given the timing, I can only speculate that this was a long time coming for NieR Reincarnation.

“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our players for your patronage over the 2.5 years since we launched on July 28, 2021,” the announcement reads. “Until the end of service, we will continue to add content and characters, as well as hold various events and campaigns, so we hope you will continue to enjoy NieR Re[in]carnation until the end.”

It’s NieRly over

I’m not going to say I’m super broken up over NieR Reincarnation ending, but it is a bummer nonetheless. Though this one’s developed by the same team that brought us Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis, Reincarnation still set itself apart from the competition with some genuinely interesting storytelling. I played Reincarnation at launch and generally enjoyed the main story, even if the gameplay was underwhelming.

Of course, NieR as a franchise is no stranger to these more transient tales. Anyone who’s tried to track down, say, footage of the NieR stage plays can attest to as much. You can already find the game’s story on YouTube, so it’s not like this one will be lost forever. Still, it’s a shame that the game itself will fade out of existence.

It’s the inevitable fate of live service games, whether they’re gacha games or otherwise. Only in very rare cases do games like these actually get preserved, such as Mega Man X Dive Offline. NieR Reincarnation has enough quality in its music, visuals, and stories that it could absolutely succeed if it were repurposed out of its gacha foundation it has now. But then again, forcing everyone to lose their save files could be the most NieR thing that Reincarnation could do.

If you want to experience this one before it closes, you have approximately three months until its ends on April 29, 2024.