TouchArcade Rating:

Well, that was quick, wasn’t it? Like several other of Square Enix’s games, The World Ends With You ($17.99) doesn’t play nice with iOS 8. They’ve been updating their titles one by one, but TWEWY is still in a sad state of disrepair. This past weekend, a whole lot of fans of the game decided they were tired of waiting for the end of the world and emailed Square Enix’s North American support asking when an update was coming to fix it. I was pretty surprised when people started hearing back on Sunday, personally. I can’t speak for how things are set up in the US, but nobody with the information to answer that kind of question fully is going to be in the office on Sunday in Japan.

At any rate, the response everyone got back was not a happy one. It seemed that Square Enix was cruelly going to leave the game on the vine to wither, and advised people to seek refunds if they weren’t able to play it. My initial response was likely similar to many of yours, a little upset and kind of bewildered, especially when word came out that the fix wasn’t all that complicated. Someone even whipped up a patch for jailbroken devices. That got me curious, because while not wanting to go through with a complicated compatibility update might be worth the loss of customer confidence from a pure dollars and cents point of view, I really couldn’t see Square Enix sacrificing their reputation over something that small. I checked the description in the Japanese App Store, and like the English one, it seemed pretty clear they were intending to update it at some point. I decided to contact Square Enix on the other side of the Pacific to see what they had to say.

The response just arrived this morning and while it’s in Japanese, through the magic of sorcery, I can tell you what it says. First, they apologized for how long it’s taking, but said that the update was proving more complex than they had originally anticipated. They can’t provide an exact date when the update will be made available, but it will in no uncertain terms be getting patched. They apologized once again for any confusion about the matter and thanked me for my patience.

So basically, it’s a happy ending for everyone. The World Ends With You will be getting its update, on Square Enix’s schedule, as always. Just as a general rule, when you’re dealing with an international company, it’s best to wait until everyone’s back in the office before getting too upset over any particular response. Now, let’s redirect our torches and pitchforks to getting updates for Final Fantasy 1 ($7.99) and 2!