Front Mission Spiritual Successor Project Stella to Release in 2019

Tomas Franzese January 1, 2019 12:33 PM EST

Project Stella, a sci-fi strategy RPG created by the developers of Front Mission, will be finished and released by Kadokawa Games in 2019.

In order to celebrate New Year’s, many developers are taking the time to thank their fans on social media; that being said, some of them are using the opportunity to tease or make announcements. Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream and SteamWorld developer Image & Form have taken the opportunity to tease announcements. Meanwhile, Kadokawa Games celebrated New Year’s by confirming that the previously teased Project Stella from the team that created Front Mission will release in 2019.

This information comes from a new Tweet that celebrates the new year before calling 2019 the year that Project Stella will be finished and released. The tweet also seems to feature the first screenshot of the title with a “HAPPY NEW YEAR” message plastered on it:



For those of you who may not be aware, Project Stella is being developed by the team that originally created Front Mission for SNES. Like that title, Project Stella is a mech-based strategy game for consoles, so it should satiate the appetites of Front Mission fans who haven’t been catered to by series owner Square Enix in recent years. Kadokawa Games has previously worked on some sci-fi strategy games for mobile platforms, namely Starly Girls and the upcoming Project Europa.

Project Stella marks the team’s first foray into the console market with a sci-fi strategy game in a while. We still don’t know much about Project Stella outside of the fact that its story will serve as a prequel or “Episode 0” to Starly Girls and that the developers are focusing on high-fidelity graphics.

In an interview with DualShockers at Tokyo Game Show, Kadokawa Games’ President Yoshimi Yasuda commented on the studio’s goal to create more accessible strategy RPGs with titles like God Wars 2 and Project Stella. He refers to Project Stella as “another project” in his statement as it was not announced yet at the time of the interview, but he’s almost definitely referring to it considering he is overseeing the game’s development:

“I’m trying to find a balance and to redefine the genre that in the west is defined strategy RPG, so that it would be in the middle between a simulation RPG and a tactical RPG. If you think about RPGs like for example Dragon Quest, characters grow through fighting, and you also have a big map to explore. I’d like to keep that growth factor but then squeeze the world down to where only the battle matters for the progression of the characters. This isn’t just about God Wars 2, but also another project that I’m working on. I’d like to create a new genre of simulation RPG that would be more accessible and an evolution.”

While Front Mission fans may have to turn to Kadokawa Games for a sci-fi mecha strategy RPG, Square Enix isn’t planning to abandon the world and it’s IP. In just over two months, or under two months if you are in Japan, Square Enix will be releasing Left Alive, a third person shooter set in the world of Front Mission.

While Left Alive will contain a “a proper Front Mission story,” Producer Shinji Hashimoto explained to DualShockers in a recent interview why Square Enix decided to not put Front Mission in the game’s title. The developers of Left Alive settled on the Front Mission-less name because they believed it signified the “newness of the franchise” and genre change that is coming with this upcoming title:

“We thought it was a way to show the newness of the franchise, and it would help to have a different name to show that it’s a new direction. It’s still very much Front Mission. We know that some know and love Front Mission. All the lore is still very much the Front Mission universe. The names, the Wanzers, the locations, the historical events in the series are all there. People who know Front Mission will get straight away that this is a Front Mission game. The name Front Mission is very closely tied to the idea of the traditional simulation strategy style of gameplay. To give that impression of a different genre of game, we changed the name.”

Whether you’re looking forward to seeing the Front Mission world expanded upon with Left Alive or are waiting for something more traditional with Kadokawa Games’ Project Stella, 2019 looks like it will be a good year for Front Mission fans. Left Alive releases on March 5 for PC and PS4 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon. As for Project Stella, we still don’t know what platforms it will hit later this year but DualShockers will be sure to let you know when that information is shared.

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