News

Dies irae Game Company Light's Greenwood Parent Company Dissolves

Greenwood, the parent company of visual novel game developer Light, announced on Sunday that the company has dissolved as of Sunday. The company's Campus brand has been sold to AKABEiSOFT2, with the planned April 28 release of the brand's Koioto Se Piace visual novel moving forward still under the Campus brand name. The team working on the Silverio series is preparing to continue development with a different company, with the series' final work planned for release next year.

AKABEiSOFT2 will offer continued support for the company's previously released titles, and will also continue to operate the company's online store.

Greenwood elaborated on the state of development for the Dies irae Pantheon smartphone/SNS game, and how it led to the company's dissolution. Light began development on the game in 2016, but the company realized that it would not able to finish development on the game alone. Light began developing the game jointly with Super Appli in 2017, but due to delays on development by Super Appli, the co-development ended in early 2018. Light and Greenwood signed a contract with Session in spring 2018 to co-develop the game, but Session declared bankruptcy in fall 2018 for a separate reason. Light and Greenwood attempted to find a new co-developer for a third time, but stated that the company had "reached its limit."

Dies irae Pantheon's development is canceled, but the game still has plans and production materials. The staff attached to the project still want to finish the game, and are willing to develop the title elsewhere. The announcement noted that it is accepting proposals from other companies to this end, but did not announce concrete plans to continue development on the game.

Light and Greenwood were founded in June 1999.

The original Dies irae -Also sprach Zarathustra- adult visual novel shipped for PC in 2007. The Dies irae Also sprach Zarathustra -die Wiederkunft- game with additional scenarios also shipped for PC in 2007. The Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~ and Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~ -Scharlachrot Grun- games then shipped for PC in 2009. Light shipped the Dies irae ~Amantes amentes~ game on the PlayStation Portable in June 2012 and on PC in August 2012, and then released a smartphone port for Android and iOS devices. A Switch version debuted last October. The publisher released the Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~ side-story spinoff game in March 2016.

views Co., Ltd. released its English-localized version of Dies irae ~Amantes amentes~ on PC via Steam in June 2017. Light launched a Kickstarter campaign to localize the game in December 2016, and it reached its US$160,000 goal in January 2017.

The game inspired a 12-episode television anime adaptation that premiered in October 2017. Crunchyroll streamed the episodes worldwide outside of Asia. Funimation also streamed an English dub. The anime's additional last six episodes debuted on the AbemaTV streaming service last July. Crunchyroll also streamed the episodes.

Source: Light via Hachima Kikō