The game industry is no stranger to a little bit of April Fools’ Day fun, but some of this year’s jokes have us wishing they were real. The likes of Sega, Square Enix, and even Redmagic took to social media to play tricks on us, and some of them were pretty convincing.
Even though she knew that it was most likely a joke, Pocket Tactics’ editor Ruby was frothing at the mouth at the idea of a new Final Fantasy game featuring the FFVII crew in a high school alternate universe, and who can blame her? Square Enix made an entire website dedicated to Ever Crisis Academy, complete with beautiful character art, a story synopsis, and a full relationship chart of all the Shinra and Otogaru students.
Madoka Magica Magia Exedra has only been out for a week, and it’s already getting in on the April Fools action with a trailer and login campaign that turns the five main characters into dancing idols. Sega created six new idol groups from the existing Project Sekai characters for the third year in a row, each with their own remixed song cover and music video. Redmagic, the brand behind some of the best gaming phones, even teased a tech-filled frisbee with a “1000Hz spin rate.”
We’re particularly sad that Hoyoverse’s announcements are just works of fiction. The new Honkai Star Rail cooking anime movie trailer really got me hooked, especially as a fan of Food Wars, and ZZZ’s XBOO Bangboo is a genius pun with an adorable design. Of course, I always hold onto a glimmer of hope that these April Fools’ jokes could materialize someday, as Pokémon Go began its life as a Google prank back when the tech giant still owned Niantic.
And who could forget that one of the most imaginative Sonic games, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, was technically an April Fools’ gag? Maybe there’s still hope for all of these gacha games to bring their jokes to the real world.