Why everyone’s talking about Love and Deepspace

A night under the stars with a broody surgeon, or a gallery date with a passionate artist – whatever your idea of a romantic night is, Love and Deepspace has you covered. The otome game from Infold Games recently hit the 50-million player milestone thanks to its innovative gameplay mechanics and immersive storyline.

Playing as a young woman learning the ropes of becoming a “Deepspace Hunter”, you head out on expeditions to take down dangerous monsters known as Wanderers using your elemental “Evol” powers. It’s through these events you form bonds with five handsome companions. Unsurprisingly for a monster-battling dating game, there are plenty of twists and turns to navigate, but we’ll come to those later.

Unlike other otome games, Love and Deepspace is a sci-fi RPG. This means you must clear stages to move the story forward. As you progress you’ll learn more about your home of Linkon City and uncover dark mysteries around your past and the Deepspace Tunnel. Some of this storytelling is told via gorgeous cutscenes and visual-novel gameplay, but there are also real-time battles to dive into as well.

There’s a nice balance of fast-paced action and lighter moments spent with your love interest (or interests, if you like to play the field) and no shortage of side content to keep you busy in between. This includes branching storylines for the companions, allowing you to dive deeper into their arcs.

At its core it’s also a gacha game. Instead of pulling hunks to chat up, you “wish” for “Memories” – cards that provide boosts and advantages in battle. Each Memory has a rank, and some give you access to dates. This could manifest itself as a 4-star memory offering a steamy ASMR experience – while a 5-star card could provide you with an animated short of your character and her love interest interacting.

There are different types of dates and stories to unlock from Memories, each with varying degrees of depth and player involvement. You may want to “Wish” several times in the hope of unlocking a 5-star Memory that’ll come with heaps of lore and relationship development, but if you’re content with the other experiences there’s no need to do so.

Read on below to find out about Myths, the most intricate of the bunch.

Remember those twists we talked about earlier? Now’s a good time to break down how they tie into Memories. Myths are similar to Memoria dates, but they’re also special due to their complex tie to the protagonist.

Firstly, your character has an “Aether Core” inside her heart. This allows her to have multiple versions of herself across time and space. The companions you meet have also met these different versions of you before, but unfortunately you don’t remember them. Still with us?

It may sound confusing, but Love and Deepspace manages to weave this nuance into the story seamlessly and Myths allow you to peek into these previous incarnations of the protagonist and her relationships with the companions. You’ll often hear the love interests asking if she remembers these key moments, yearning for their long-lost connection with her.

Otome games are nothing new. However, Love and Deepspace builds on their winning formula of multiple love interests and romance routes by adding deep combat mechanics and a genuinely engaging storyline. The twists and turns of the main story pack a surprising amount of emotional depth, keeping you invested in the world.

A large reason for the game’s success is its cast of companions. There’s truly someone for everyone. Want to break down the ice king’s defenses? Go for Zayne. Want the classic bad boy experience? There’s a reason Sylus content is circulating on social media. Each companion has something truly unique to offer and a lot of depth below those good looks.

The sheer amount of content on offer is impressive. Aside from the main story and side chapters, extra activities with the companions bring the game to life. You receive texts and calls from them, play mini-games with them, can hit up the photo booth together, and so much more. These actions raise their Affinity levels and unlock features like Poses and Interactions too.