Wild Arms Successor 'Armed Fantasia: To The End Of The Wilderness' Cancelled Following Financial Review
505 Games' parent company shutters crowdfunding project
"ColonelFancy" Mike Lind
9/25/20262 min read
In a surprising, and somber, update for fans and backers who had been following the project. 505 Games' parent company Digital Bros has cancelled several pieces of software under their umbrella. Battle Islands (a free-to-play strategy title), Directorate Novitiate (a third person heavy narrative action RPG), and chief among them being Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness. Aimed to be the spiritual successor to the storied RPG franchise Wild Arms, this Western-inspired turn-based role-playing game, the choice came down to financial decisions and multiple revisions of the game design.
Official statement from 505:
[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.
Original Wild Arms producer Akifumi Kaneko had launched the Kickstarter in 2022, and the development team was comprised of former members of the Wild Arms staff. It raised ¥379 million (roughly $2.4 million dollars USD), and became a double Kickstarter with Pennyblood, a gothic horror spiritual successor to the Shadow Hearts series.
The crowdfunding aspect of this is also something that's paramount. With your Kickstarter campaigns, it's certainly rolling the dice with the guarantee of a project coming to fruition. It's not the first time over ambition has thrown a wrench into development, and driving up costs is a real possiblity.
News and communications from the official Kickstarter became few and far between. A post from August 1st 2025 was followed up almost a year later in March 9th of 2026. Some of the more infamous video game Kickstarter campaigns like Mighty no.9 became notorious for the constant delays, over promising, misguided marketing, and setting the bar way too high for expectations to be met, leading to a final product that was passable, but left fans wanting more. 2013's Takedown: Red Sabre, a Rainbow Six-style tactical shooter, was heavily panned for broken gameplay and heavy bugs. They were also published by 505 Games.
The last Wild Arms game was 2018's Wild Arms: Million Memories, a mobile game released in Japan for smartphones. It was shut down in 2020.