Duet Night Abyss won't be a gacha game

Duet Night Abyss has been one of the most often talked about upcoming games since it was announced. It's another entry in the open-world RPG genre, and it was supposed to be a gacha game. In fact, it was a gacha game during the beta test, but things have changed. During the latest live stream, the developers announced that they are removing the gacha system and making it a regular live service game instead.

You should definitely watch the full video to hear more details, but the main changes that had been addressed were the acquisition of new characters and the monetization of the game. Players will be able to unlock any character at any time by farming their fragments. It's not a unique system. Gacha games have that as well. For example, Punishing: Gray Raven and Blue Archive have it. The only uncertainty that remains is the time that it will take to collect enough fragments for a single character. They can't make it too easy, but it shouldn't take a month for a relatively active player to do that either.

As for monetization, the character acquisition still plays a role in that. Even though all characters are farmable, you will still be able to spend money by buying their fragments to unlock them faster. If you think about it, it's not that dissimilar to gacha games with 100% rate-up banners. I won't be surprised if it ends up being the main income avenue for the game, depending on the price, even though the developers claim that the main focus will be on selling skins and accessories. Admittedly, I spend most of my money in gacha games on skins, but if there's an option to just buy a character I like, I will definitely use it.

I didn't have a chance to play the beta, but judging from what I've seen, Duet Night Abyss is a very high-quality game. I was on the fence about whether I was going to play it or not, because I'm a bit dissatisfied with some mechanics in the game, and there is only one character that I'm interested in currently, but this development is a very convincing argument in favor of the game. The gacha system is great, but having a live service game without FOMO or intense grind, a game that you can play at your own pace without being punished for it, is very alluring. The only thing that might still urge players to complete existing content sooner will probably be the events. Open-world games and even semi-open-world ones often times lock events behind quests.

Duet Night Abyss developers have decided to try their luck in a niche category, but if they succeed, this game might start a whole new wave in the industry. I'm still not sure if I will stick with it, but I will definitely try it out when it launches.