Yoko Taro Is Gonna Delete These Square Enix Fans Saves Forever

Can I have uhhhh…a happy ending?Artwork: Square Enix

Usually, when a game’s online servers are down, players don’t have a chance to step out into a conscious blaze of glory before the final dawn arrives. But then again, most games don’t have Nier’s quirky creator Yoko Taro as their director.

The game in question is SINOALICE, Square Enix’s free-to-play gacha action role-playing game for iOS and Android. In it, you play as fairytale characters like Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Princess Kaguya as they fight to revive their authors to give them a happy ending. Somewhere down the line, the fight for a happily ever after came with the help of Deny and Drakengard 3 characters in special collaborative events. For players in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, however, SINoAlice’s servers going offline on November 10 overlaps with a special mission designed by Taro. Once completed, players will be disconnected from the game forever.

“After completing the entire final arc, a[n] the ending clip will play. Once this clip is finished, you will be forced to log out. After that, you can never again. Log. I never. Still,” sino_english, wrote a fan Twitter account that translates tweets from the official SINoAlice account. “Please clean everything before you set foot”, “NieR fans will understand.

Artwork: Square Enix

Read More: Nier creator’s fairy tale RPG is so sinister that it’s silly

Final meta missions in a Taroverse game are not a new phenomenon. In Nier: Automata’s ending E, players had to decide whether or not they should erase all their game data in exchange for helping another player in the game’s final boss fight. While the E’s ending evoked a sense of camaraderie with another player, SINoAlice promises to be a solitary final and brutal encore.

According to sino_english, the game’s cooperative feature will be disabled and players will be pitted against a “very strong” final opponent. If you lose, you cannot continue. Today, nine of SINoAlice’s ten final missions, known as Verses, have been released. The tenth and final verse of SINoAlice is set to release on November 3, giving players seven days to complete the mobile game’s latest story mission. This outcome is particularly brutal given that gacha games require players to invest a considerable portion of their disposable income in unlocking characters and the like. Not being able to log on and see their shiny, glowing anime faces is a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Square-Enix

“Once you reach the end, the library will be permanently closed forever. There will be no turning back after that. Even if you want to help your friends finish the chapter, there is no way to help directly. It’ll all be gone when it’s over,” sino_english wrote.

Read more: Nier: Automata Director: “I Might Be Broken Somehow”

Since SINoAlice’s story is already meta-hell with its cute fairy tale characters fighting for the chance of a happy ending, my money is on Taro, leaving players with a still meta ending -er during the game’s final cutscene. Hopefully SINoAlice’s ending won’t be like the Shonen Jump fantasy manga that left too soon, The Hunters Guild: Red Riding Hoodwhere the characters laughed at the cancellation of the manga. Chief among them was its main antagonist, who proved that subtlety is for cowards by saying “a story that doesn’t entertain is abandoned.” Once abandoned, our world will disappear. Let’s just hope SINoAlice’s group of hopeful characters get their happily ever after.