Today Bandai Namco announced a brand new The Idolmaster game titled The Idolmaster: Starlit Season, marking the return of the franchise to home platforms.
The Idolmaster (or iDOLM@STER as it’s often stylized) franchise is a super-popular series of rhythm and idol management games in Japan, but lately, it has been confined to mobile. The latest console release was Stella Stage in 2017.
Starlit Season won’t come just on PS4 as the previous console launches, but also on PC. Perhaps surprisingly, no Switch version was announced.
You can watch the teaser trailer below.
The game is coming to Japan in 2020 and it’s being developed in Unreal Engine featuring a new expression engine.
The player is, as usual, a producer of 765 Productions just returned from overseas after a period of training. After reuniting with the president and the idols, it’s time to get ready for a large event named “Starlit Season.” This time around the company will compete with a special unit formed from multiple offices.
This is one of the most interesting aspects for fans of the series, as it brings together idols from the various branches of the franchise, including the 13 classic girls from the mainline games, five from Cinderella Girls, five from Million Live!, and five from Shiny Colors. Only three idols from each of the spinoff series have been revealed so far.
The “Live” part of the game has been overhauled and the visual-novel-like part is enriched by interacting with additional idols.
More information on The Idolmaster: Starlit Season will be revealed in April, but for now you can check out the girls revealed so far below, alongside a few images.
One thing is for sure: it appears that Bandai Namco has mastered the “anime-like” look nowadays. This looks fantastic.
The only issue is the usual: will it ever come west? The publisher has been very good with its localizations as of late, even bringing series like Gundam that rarely made the jump. The PC version might help as it did with SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays, but the usual licensing issues for the songs loom over the horizon. We can only wait and hope for now.
