The development team at Blue Protocol announced today that the free-to-play MMORPG will soon be shutting down in Japan. The game was originally unveiled in 2019 and was set to release in Japan in spring 2023. However, it failed to gain enough fans to continue and the live service is now scheduled to end on Saturday, January 18, 2025. However, the developers said they will continue to update Blue Protocol with new stories until shortly before the end.
We reported a few months ago on the bankruptcy of developer Bandai Namco Online Studios, which cast a long shadow over the planned global launch. In fact, publisher Amazon Games stopped talking about Blue Protocol’s western debut some time ago, and today confirmed that the launch will not happen outside of Japan.
In the statement announcing the discontinuation of the service, Bandai Namco Online said: “We have maintained a close relationship with Amazon Games throughout the development of BLUE PROTOCOL and both teams are disappointed that we will not be able to deliver the game to players around the world.” We know this is disappointing news and we share your disappointment. We love the world and characters of BLUE PROTOCOL and we were delighted to welcome players from all over the world to Regnas. Together with Bandai Namco Online, we would like to express our deep gratitude to the passionate fans who followed the development of BLUE PROTOCOL and participated in the closed technical test.
Blue Protocol featured action-packed combat with five classes and plenty of dungeons and raids to tackle. The news is certainly disappointing for MMORPG fans, although Amazon remains strongly committed to the genre, as evidenced by the upcoming releases of Throne and Liberty (October 1, after a slight delay) and New World Aeternum (October 15), not to mention ongoing work on The Lord of the Rings MMO, although that is still in early development.
