Digital Bros cancels Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness, Directorate Novitiate

505 Games parent company Digital Bros has discontinued development on Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness, as well as Directorate Novitiate and the sequel to the free-to-play game Battle Island, the company announced in its latest earnings report.

Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness was announced in 2022 as a spiritual successor to the Wild Arms series from a company founded by the core team that created franchise. It debuted in a successfully funded “Double Kickstarter” campaign with Penny Blood, a similar spiritual successor to the Shadow Hearts series.

The latest update posted on the Kickstarter campaign blog was in March, in which lead game designer Akifumi Kaneko said that the development team had completed a vertical slice that was submitted to its publisher (who until today was unknown).

Directorate Novitiate was announced in January 2025 with a planned Early Access release later that year that never manifested.

Here is the full statement from 505 Games:

[Digital Bros] decided to discontinue the development of some videogames , Directorate Novitiate, Armed Fantasia, and the sequel to the free-to-play game Battle Island, after multiple attempts to revise their gameplay.

The decisions followed a thorough review of the potential of each product in consideration of changing market conditions and the additional investment required to complete development to bring the games to the market.

As a result, the Group reported non-cash asset impairment of €18.7 million , including €17.6 million in write-offs relating to the discontinued projects and €1 million in impairment losses on videogames for which impairment testing indicated that the present value of expected future cash flows was below the carrying amount of the related assets, to reflect lower sales expectations.