"Tribe Nine Cancelled Just Three Months Post-Launch"

It's rare for me to express true astonishment in writing, but I think I speak for most people when I say I was shocked to learn that Tribe Nine is set to be shuttered. According to a recent news post, the servers for Tribe Nine will be shut off on November 27th, with any upcoming updates now cancelled. Additionally, the end-of-service (EOS) has been announced, and paid Enigma Entities will be refunded while in-game purchases will be halted.

It's an acrimonious end for Tribe Nine, which only a couple of months ago boasted of over ten million downloads. Based on the anime series of the same name and featuring art by Danganronpa veteran Rui Komatsuzaki, it included regular ARPG gameplay and the so-called Xtreme Baseball boss battles that fans of the series will recognize.

Tribe Nine's unceremonious axing continues a rather unpleasant trend over the last few years that has seen many releases cancelled after less than a year in service. For many fans of these releases, it can seem pretty hopeless to become invested in any of them, considering the EOS threat that looms over them.

TribelessConsidering that Rui Komatsuzaki's art has graced the well-received Hundred Line -Last Defence Academy- on other platforms, there seems little reason why Tribe Nine would be cancelled on the service. However, being ditched so soon after launch may backfire on developer Akatsuki Games.

With another anime-based release on the horizon, Kaiju No.8: The Game, they're likely banking on bringing in fans of the existing series. But casual players may see Akatsuki's track record and balk at the idea of the same thing happening again. Either way, for fans of Tribe Nine, it's not exactly a happy Friday.

But, there's still a lot of great releases out there to keep you going. Why not check out our latest feature covering the top five new mobile games to try this week on mobile for some of our top picks?