Heartbreak and Deepspace
After Love and Deepspace cancelled a hotly anticipated character, fans don’t know what they want from a game they used to adore.
Every Monday morning, I look forward to a little treat: I enter Destiny Cafe, my favorite spot in Linkon City, where new gifts await me for the week. Maybe there’s even a special event to unlock another memory from my blurry past. I wait to see which of my five suitors is waiting for me. Today, it’s Zayne in the black button-up I bought for him, slacks, and, for whatever reason, sunglasses. Perhaps he had a hard day at Akso Hospital, or maybe he has a headache. He’s sitting at a small bistro table, sipping tea and doing some work, but as soon as he sees me, he rises.
“Tell me, what do you want to do now?” he asks, leaning down to brush my hair out of my face.
After I check in with friends and read messages, I see what else is on my to-do list: combat training, buying something from the shop, and strengthening my memory and relationship with Zayne, since he’s decided to join me in the cafe. We take a picture in the photo booth, then play a few games, like working together to get a few plushies at the claw machine.
This is how I like to play the mobile game Love and Deepspace (LaDS), while sitting in my recliner drinking coffee and keeping an eye on my toddler. LaDS is an otome—a romance game meant specifically for heterosexual female players, with a female main character and a selection of male love interests. Made by Shanghai-based developer Papergames and produced internationally by Infold, it was first released in January 2024 and within three days had over 10 million downloads.
The reception of LaDS, both in its acceptance and critique, speaks a lot to the role women have in gaming. Despite the fact that women account for 48% of gamers worldwide over 16, it is still a highly patriarchal culture, where women often feel unsafe, unseen, and objectified. Because otome games are romances targeted toward women, LaDS is often discredited as a “gooner game.” Ardi Rose, from Pennsylvania, has been playing the game since February 2024. “When I joined, even within my own friend group, from other women, I was made fun of for playing the ‘gooner game,’” she told me. While she described this experience as “disappointing,” she added that “this game has always been so much more than ‘dating men.’”
The game began with three love interests: Xavier, Zayne, and Rafayel. Within a year, two more were added: Sylus and Caleb. But there was always a “Coming Soon” sticker in the selection menu, an implicit promise that a sixth love interest would show up. When the final character —Valko—was announced for the version 6 update, the rollout was messy and frustrating, and many fans thought that he was a disrespectful and offensive addition to the love interest lineup. Despite its previous popularity, the fans began to turn on Infold. They boycotted, protested, and counter-protested; eventually, Infold pulled Valko before he ever became an official part of the game.
What happened with Valko is about much more than just the cancellation of a fictional character. This is a game designed for women. “As we’ve expressed before,” Infold said in an official statement after the cancellation, “our vision for Love and Deepspace has always been to build a world that grows alongside you—one that offers a richer, deeper sense of companionship over time….We will work harder, listen more carefully, and do our utmost to honor the trust you have placed in us.” Yet so many players felt like this was another empty promise in a misogynistic space, toying with women’s feelings and desires, preying on their vulnerabilities, and making a feminist franchise suddenly feel anything but.
Love and Deepspace is a sci-fi game set in the future, after the Chronorift Catastrophe of 2034, when a rift from deepspace opens above the earth and energy clusters called protocores cause Wanderers (essentially evil beasts) to spawn. The Main Character (referred to as Protagonist or MC by fans since there is no canon name for the main character) is a child when the catastrophe happens. She becomes a Hunter, fighting Wanderers and harvesting protocores. Throughout her life, she comes into contact with the game’s various love interests. As the story continues, you begin to realize the MC and the Chronorift Catastrophe are not one-time occurrences; she has existed in many lifetimes, in many different universes, and has been connected to each of these men in different ways.
