What do real-life thoroughbreds, anime horse girls and Japanese idols have in common? For a brief moment, these elements came together to make for the hottest video game in the world ¡ª and they might kickstart a new trend in Japanese games overseas.
On June 26, Tokyo-based developer Cygames released the English port of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a game that tasks players with training equine-human hybrids (all of them female, as suggested by the title combining the Japanese words for ¡°horse¡± and ¡°daughter¡± or ¡°girl¡±). Players then have their horse girls ¡ª inspired by actual thoroughbreds across the history of Japan¡¯s competitive horse racing scene ¡ª run simulated races around tracks and, upon victory, the girls break into idolesque concerts.
It¡¯s exactly this quirky mix of anime aesthetics and casually addictive gameplay that you might expect to resonate deeply with a niche audience and no one else ¡ª but that¡¯s where Umamusume bucked the trend. Two weeks after the release of the English-language port and largely thanks to of who gave Umamusume a try, the game at one point amassed more than 87,000 concurrent players on the digital games marketplace Steam.
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