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Tango Gameworks is shutting down Hero Dice, the turn-based mobile game which launched in March. In-app purchases are no longer available, and the game will be closed down on August 31st.
That’s only five months. And it’s something of a sadness, given that the studio’s head, Shinji Mikami, has expressed a desire to venture into other genres.
Back in March, Mikami spoke about how he doesn’t want Tango Gameworks—whose most recent game is Ghostwire: Tokyo—to only make horror games. In an interview with Famitsu, Mikami said:
“I hope to eventually change the image that Tango Gameworks currently has. “At the moment, we are still seen as a studio that specialises only in survival horror. Of course, it’s nice to have fans think of us as a studio with a reputation for developing survival horror games. But we also want to be viewed as a studio that can create a wider variety of games.”
This is a noble aim, although it should be noted that Tango Gameworks is good at horror. No other developer can boast the presence of Shinji Mikami in their building, available for consultation. Still, Hero Dice was something of a departure, being a boardgamey hero battler. Alas, it was not to be.
Ghostwire: Tokyo wasn’t a great horror game, but it was a fascinating game in its own right. In VideoGamer’s review, I said:
“It’s no surprise that my favourite thing to do in Ghostwire: Tokyo is to grapple up to its rooftops and glide over its woes. That, the game seems to suggest, is what everyone here is in danger of doing.”
