The Origins

The story of Débil Starz has its roots in an earlier short film titled “Débil Dead”, directed by Pierre Fernandez around 2008-2009. This pioneering work, though difficult to find today, already laid the foundation for the concept that would captivate Ankama: pitting popular icons against each other in burlesque and violent situations, all in stop-motion claymation.

The real trigger for the collaboration with Ankama is revealed in the making-of testimonies: “ToT (…) saw Débil Dead and knew I intended to create a series based on the same concept, and he wanted to produce it.” This chance encounter between Pierre Fernandez and ToT, the studio’s art director, marked the beginning of a unique adventure for Ankama, which decided to invest in “claymation stop-motion, which was new for Ankama.”

Yann Gobart testifies to this spirit: “We arrived here at Ankama, there was nothing, we were inaugurating this sector, the stop-motion sector, there were only white walls. So we had to set up these spotlights, we had to find the right spots.” The team consists of a small but passionate core. As described by Yann Gobart during Manga-News’ visit to the workshop: “We are a small team of 5, 6 people… I also count the screenwriter among the 5-6 people.” This small size allows for close collaboration and unbridled creativity: “(…) we have 2 floors to climb to say ‘By the way, did you do that?’ ‘No, I didn’t, you’ll do it tomorrow.'”

It was Pierre Fernandez, an animator specializing in volume animation and stop-motion, who led this atypical project. Trained in traditional volume animation techniques, Fernandez brought rare expertise to Ankama, which was accustomed to the 2D Flash productions of the Wakfu series. His artisanal approach was radically different from the studio’s standards.

The initial ambition was considerable: “I started by writing 26 episodes… 26 pitches rather. I built on the pitches that Pierre had written.” Yann and Tom Gobart, brothers and screenwriters, indeed joined the project to enrich the narrative aspect. Yann testifies to this family collaboration: “These are scenarios written with my own brother and with Pierre. So we write as a trio, we know each other well, so it goes pretty fast. We are on the same wavelength in terms of humor and how to manage a story.”

The project also benefits from the expertise of Jonathan, set designer, prop master, and “Swiss army knife who made the puppets”, as well as Alexandre, director of photography.

The Art of the Unlikely Encounter

Yann Gobart clearly explains the philosophy of the series: “The idea is to take characters from popular culture, whether literary, musical, or cinematic, with a preference for cinema and literature… and have them meet in an improbable, even downright surreal story.”

The team fully embraces its influences: “We are very inspired by the American technique, and a bit like in ‘The Streets of San Francisco,’ that old series with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, there is always a guest from one episode to the next.”

The Good Father (2010)

On April 23, 2010, during the Ankama Convention, visitors discovered for the first time “The Good Father”, the first episode of Débil Starz. This presentation revealed a simple but effective pitch: Charles Ingalls (the father from Little House on the Prairie) faces off against Tarzan, portrayed by Christophe Lambert.

Yann Gobart details the pitch with passion: “In the first episode titled The Good Father, it’s the story of Charles Ingalls meeting Tarzan. One wants to cut wood to build the little house on the prairie, and the other lives in the woods and doesn’t want to see the forest cleared like that.”

The episode, lasting 8 minutes, introduces a third character who disrupts the balance: “This conflict will be resolved by the arrival of a third character who belongs to… I name Leatherface, the maniacal chainsaw killer from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” This unexpected intrusion reveals the episode’s “ecological subtext” according to Yann.

The technical challenges of this episode are considerable, as Pierre Fernandez explains: “The Good Father is a prairie with a forest next to it. We had to create a set that is supposed to be an endless exterior.” The team had to develop solutions, especially for the sets: “Yann and I started making cardboard prototypes to see what scale we would use for this set.”

The dubbing of this episode also reveals the attention to detail: “The atmosphere was really fun, I think the actors got into it, they laughed at mocking the puritanical American society with all its references, which was really funny.”

Blackchapel (2010)

In the episode “Blackchapel”, Yann Gobart reveals the casting: “In Débil Starz, Sherlock Holmes is Morgan Freeman. And his faithful Watson is Forest Whitaker. (…) We tried to ‘blackify’ all the WASP Anglo-Saxon culture of the 20th century, even the 19th.”

“Pierre had the idea for this scenario about 2 years ago. And that was before Obama was elected in the United States. So when we started the project and Obama had just been elected, we said to ourselves, ‘Oh, we’ve got something here.'”

The team fully embraces its provocative approach while keeping the antagonist a secret.

As the team explains: “Jonathan made us a magnificent set, we said to ourselves we have to see it from all angles. We’re going to do a semi-circular tracking shot like De Palma because the set is too beautiful, we’re going to see all the volumes.” This visual ambition required creative technical solutions: “The four walls are removable, which allows us to place the camera wherever we want.”

The most complex aspect of Blackchapel lies in its environments, entirely created in post-production: “For Blackchapel, the entire second part on the docks, the Thames doesn’t exist, we didn’t have the means to do the water for real… All of this is recreated in compositing, the Thames and the mist.” The team collaborates closely with Vincent Bonduau, a special effects specialist who “already works at Ankama, he works on Wakfu.”

Recognition comes quickly: Blackchapel is selected in 2011 at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival in the “TV Films in Competition” category. Yann confirms this recognition: “There was already a 6.5-minute episode shown at Annecy… in the politically incorrect section.”

Game Over Death (2011)

The third and final official episode, “Game Over Death”, stages the ultimate confrontation between Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood. Yann Gobart teases this episode with enthusiasm: “The third episode that everyone is waiting for, at least us and the people who know us, will be the meeting between Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood. I’ll let you imagine what that could look like.”

The production challenges reach their peak in this episode: “Four months of filming for six minutes of animation,” reveals the making-of. The team had to manage complex technical constraints, notably the “special effects: explosions, energy balls, a Gatling gun firing bullets everywhere.”

The main challenge of this episode lies in creating a “Street Fighter-style energy ball, which was the main reference. It must not look like a video game, it must not be too stylized, it must be as realistic as possible, so that was the challenge to integrate it well into the image.”

The episode benefits from exceptional voice acting with Patrick Noérie as Clint Eastwood and Mathieu Doang as Bruce Lee. The casting director testifies: “Patrick was the official French dubber for George Clooney… and without thinking about the suave and nonchalant side of George Clooney, I thought it could fit Clint Eastwood.” For Bruce Lee, the challenge was different: “Bruce Lee’s voice was not easy either… there are two dubs, the one from the time… and the one from today… and in fact, Mathieu Doang exceeded my expectations.”

The Craft of Claymation

The working method favors craftsmanship over industrialization. Yann Gobart fully embraces this: “We allow ourselves to improvise because, as I repeat, we are artisanal, but if we were a larger structure and worked more industrially, with an even greater need for productivity than ours, we wouldn’t be able to allow our puppets to improvise.”

The use of “magnets under the characters’ feet on iron plates” allows unprecedented flexibility: “This allows us to move them and make them stand flat on the set… or even improvise certain movements that weren’t storyboarded initially.”

The making-of reveals the secrets behind the creation of the series’ iconic characters. Pierre Fernandez explains his method: “The basis of this series is caricature. I sculpt the faces in clay and make two basic expressions, then Jonathan makes molds and we produce several copies.”

Yann Gobart details this revolutionary technical innovation: “Generally, when you do stop-motion, you change the characters’ heads from one frame to the next… But Pierre sculpts everything in front of the camera. That’s why the heads are made of clay. It allows him to work on the corners of the lips, the eyebrows moving as he goes.”

The complexity of the process is detailed by Yann during the interview: “An episode takes between 6 months and 10 months… Writing the scripts can take 3 weeks… a month to write the script, 4 or 5 months to film… a month and a half, 2 months to make the sets, and then a full month for post-production.”

For The Good Father, the team developed a unique method: “We made cardboard prototypes, then polystyrene, and then plaster.” The working scale posed constant challenges: “We work at a one-fifth scale, which is very small, so we have to adapt.”

The workshop visit reveals the meticulous work on the sets for the third episode: “Caroline is working on aspects of the next set, it will be a kind of lounge… here is the bar and the piano… the keys are removable.” Yann jokes about this detail: “I think it’s not very well tuned, but we’ll see that in post-production, the music will create the illusion.”

Blackchapel pushes innovation further with modular sets: “The set is fragmented into several parts that interlock and can be detached to allow the camera to be positioned precisely.” This technical flexibility allows for shots impossible with traditional sets.

The team rejects the simplicity of fixed shots: “We could have settled for fixed shots, so a very theatrical inspiration, but we said that wasn’t the point either. We really try to get as close as possible to cinema.”

Alexandre, director of photography, testifies to the complexities of lighting: “At first, it was about figuring out how we were going to manage to create a daytime exterior in a fairly small volume, especially in terms of ceiling height.” The solution required “multiplying light sources, so multiplying bulbs, managing different color temperatures, and intensity issues.”

“This leads us to sometimes film the puppets from behind, why not? A bit like… playing with off-screen, musical gags, getting out of the somewhat narrow straitjacket of animation for animation’s sake.”

Yann Gobart testifies to the magic of the animation process: “When we reach the end of the day, the shot is finished and this character comes to life before our eyes, moving, while we’ve only seen it fixed… it’s always magical, it’s excellent.”

“So it makes us want to make them jump, fence, shoot, tell jokes, have a drink, push a table… we really try to make them act, interact as much as possible.” Pierre Fernandez pushes this approach to the extreme with complex camera movements, despite the lack of professional equipment: “We don’t have motion control… So when the camera moves, and believe me it moves from one episode to the next because Pierre is really very particular about this.”

The animation process itself reveals a rigorous methodology: “We take photos one after the other as we move the character… It’s a camera connected to a computer with software that allows us to see the animation evolving, to check if it’s what we’re doing or if we need to redo the last frame.”

The making-of details specific innovations: “For Blackchapel, the entire second part on the docks, the Thames doesn’t exist, we didn’t have the means to do the water for real… All of this is recreated in compositing, the Thames and the mist.” Yann Gobart embraces this technical hybridization: “There are things we can’t invent on set… we’re not going to animate water frame by frame… we say it’s still better to do it in CGI.” This pragmatism reveals a team that doesn’t hesitate to mix techniques to serve creation.

The Limits of the Format

Despite critical successes and festival selections, Débil Starz suffers from structural limitations that hasten its demise. The claymation stop-motion format, particularly time-consuming, drastically limits production pace. The making-of confirms this unambiguously: “Four months of filming for six minutes of animation,” a ratio that makes it difficult to develop a regular series.

Yann Gobart details these constraints during the interview: “A puppet… A frame is great to do in cinema, you film, you press record and that’s it. But here, if we want to do a 6-second shot, 120 frames or so, we have to do all the frames, the images one after the other.”

The adult target audience of the series also poses a problem within Ankama’s ecosystem of the time, traditionally oriented towards a family or young adult audience. The black humor and cinematic references of Débil Starz struggle to find their natural audience within the Ankama community, more accustomed to fantasy universes.

The end of Débil Starz in 2011 coincides with several strategic changes at Ankama. The studio gradually focuses its efforts on more ambitious and commercial productions: development of feature films, international expansion of Wakfu, and launch of new transmedia projects.

Pierre Fernandez leaves Ankama after this experience, ending the stop-motion sector he had created within the studio. This separation symbolically marks the end of a period of artistic experimentation.

Yann Gobart had “big ambitions for this episode” Blackchapel, but these hopes would not materialize. The team’s enthusiasm, palpable in every testimony, is not enough to maintain this sector within the studio.

After 2011, Débil Starz quickly fades into obscurity. The episodes, initially available on Ankama’s official website, gradually disappear from official platforms.

Pierre Fernandez continues his career as a freelance stop-motion animator, working on various projects. However, Débil Starz remains the most visible work in his filmography, despite its near invisibility.

Between 2012-2016, Fernandez develops other projects, but none achieve the critical recognition of Débil Starz.

The Official Return of Pierre Fernandez

2024, creation of the official YouTube channel “DEBIL STARZ PF” by Pierre Fernandez. This personal initiative by the original creator demonstrates a desire to reclaim his creative legacy and relaunch the series independently.

The channel offers not only the restored original episodes but also new content. Fernandez unveils show reels, detailed making-ofs, and even new short films like “Carbonite Dream”, a Star Wars parody featuring Han Solo in hibernation. This recent production proves that the creator has lost none of his talent and sense of parody.

Unlike the UK with the international success of Aardman and Wallace & Gromit—which had won over 100 international awards since 1989—France did not have a champion capable of commercially carrying this technique. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) had shown that an adult audience existed for this type of content, becoming the second most profitable stop-motion film in history. In the United States, creators like Henry Selick were already exploring adult themes with works like Coraline (2009).

The French stop-motion audience indeed seemed “too young” in 2010-2011. The cultural references of Débil Starz—Charles Ingalls, Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Lee—were aimed at a generation shaped by 1970s-1980s cinema, but this generation did not yet consume animation en masse. The 20-35 year olds, the natural target audience for the series, then favored live-action series and had not yet developed an appetite for adult animation.

Netflix and streaming platforms played a decisive role in this transformation. The platform created adult animated series such as BoJack Horseman and Archer, normalizing this type of content for the general public.

The end of Débil Starz did not discourage Ankama from attempting hybrid production with stop-motion again. In 2017, the studio proudly announced an animated adaptation of Monkey Bizness, a comic by Pozla and El Diablo published by Ankama Éditions in the Label 619 collection. The project seemed promising: “A 10×7′ project for adults” produced by the studio Passion Paris with support from France Télévisions (Studio 4) and the CNC. This series, “half live/animation (puppets + 2D)”, represented a technical evolution compared to Débil Starz, blending volume puppets and 2D animation.

However, despite the teaser produced and the communication around the project, Monkey Bizness never progressed beyond the pilot stage. Ankama wasn’t really involved in the production. Unlike Débil Starz, where the studio managed the entire production, Monkey Bizness was outsourced to Passion Paris, diluting Ankama’s direct involvement in the creative process.

For the curious, the episodes are now available on Pierre Fernandez’s official channel, allowing you to discover or rediscover this unique series.

In 2026, to celebrate Ankama’s 25th anniversary, the “Once Upon a Time…” series of articles revisits the studio’s abandoned or forgotten projects. After a final installment dedicated to IG Magazine, it’s Débil Starz’s turn to be in the spotlight. And who knows? Maybe the next episode will be about Wakfu TCG?

A look back at the story of a project that embodied the ambition of a different kind of video game press, but failed to retain its audience.

The Context: A Looming Crisis in Video Game Journalism

The year 2009 marked a turning point in the history of specialized video game journalism. While the sector still appeared prosperous on the surface, the first signs of fragility began to emerge. The digital revolution was transforming how information was consumed, and traditional business models were starting to show their limits.

It was in this uncertain context that Ankama, then led by its three founders, decided to diversify its activities. After creating Ankama Éditions in 2005 to publish its own comics, the studio launched Ankama Presse in June 2007, a new subsidiary dedicated to magazine publishing.

The first publication from this division, Dofus Mag, launched in December 2007, was an immediate success with a print run of 35,000 copies for its first issue. This bimonthly 132-page magazine, sold for €7.90, offered a unique approach: no advertising, content exclusively dedicated to the Dofus universe, and “remarkable” editorial quality. The bet seemed to pay off, and Ankama Presse quickly set its sights on broader ambitions.

“Ankama turns everything it touches into gold,” observed Otakia in 2010. The Dofus magazine quickly established itself as “the number 2 in video game magazines” with 70,000 copies sold per issue. This success encouraged Anthony Roux to dream bigger.

The Genesis of IG Magazine

Building on the success of Dofus Mag, Anthony Roux nurtured a broader ambition: to create a general-interest video game magazine that transcended traditional divides. The idea likely took root in 2008, but it was in February 2009 that the project officially took shape.

On February 23, 2009, Ankama officially announced the launch of IG Magazine (for “InGame Magazine“) for March 25, 2009. From the first communications, the ambition was clear. The magazine positioned itself as “a high-end bimonthly about video game culture.”

The editorial proposition stood in stark contrast to the competition. “Somewhere between a magazine and a coffee table book,” IG Magazine was “entirely dedicated to video games, their history, culture, and aesthetics.” The concept immediately won over readers.

Olivier Séguret, a respected critic from Libération, compared the project to “the Trafic of video games, with color and photos added.” This reference to the film magazine created by Serge Daney reflected the project’s cultural ambition: to offer a critical and intellectual approach to video games, comparable to that of the Cahiers du cinéma for the seventh art.

The chosen format reflected this ambition. IG Magazine adopted the concept of a “mook” (a blend of magazine and book), with 244 pages without advertising, on high-quality paper. The cover price, set at €8.50, reflected this high-end positioning.

The Editorial Team

To carry out this ambitious project, Ankama Presse assembled a high-quality editorial team, led by Bounthavy Suvilay. She had an unusual profile for video game journalism: holding a DEA in general and comparative literature from Paris 3 University and a degree in modern literature, she had already proven herself as editor-in-chief of Dofus Mag since 2007.

Her academic approach to video games—she would defend a doctoral thesis on Dragon Ball in 2019—deeply influenced the editorial line of IG Magazine. Under her leadership, the magazine developed a cultural and analytical approach to video games, far from simple reviews and walkthroughs.

The team included quality contributors from various publications. Erwan Higuinen, a journalist at Les Inrockuptibles and former contributor to the Cahiers du cinéma, joined the adventure after discovering the first issue through Olivier Séguret’s article. “It was an article by Olivier Séguret published in Libération in which he presented IG as ‘the Trafic of games, with color and photos added,'” he recalls. This comparison with the prestigious film magazine created by Serge Daney convinced him to buy the first issue and eventually join the team.

Julien Pirou, an iconic figure in the geek community and presenter on Nolife, was recruited through Sébastien Ruchet. “Sébastien Ruchet, the President of the Nolife channel, told me you were looking for writers for a magazine project at Ankama,” he explains. A specialist in RPGs and a modder for Might & Magic, Pirou brought his expertise in role-playing games and became the author of the regular column “Vie des Hauts Ludiques.”

Yann Bernard, a tennis and video game enthusiast, mainly handled reviews. Pierre-Alexandre Conte, a trained journalist working for jeuxvideo.com, was one of the first writers. Jean-Michel Caillat, a former regional daily press journalist, served as the editorial secretary.

This team, though small, shared a common vision: to treat video games as a cultural object worthy of in-depth analysis, much like literature, cinema, or the fine arts.

The Business Model: Independence Through the Absence of Advertising

The most remarkable feature of IG Magazine was its revolutionary business model for the time. Unlike the rest of the specialized press, the magazine contained no advertising in its first 12 issues.

This decision, directly inspired by Anthony Roux, was part of his general philosophy of creative independence. “Ankama allocates no budget to advertising,” he regularly declared, preferring to rely on quality and word of mouth. This approach naturally applied to IG Magazine.

The absence of advertising allowed for total editorial freedom. Writers could criticize without restraint, analyze without compromise, and propose in-depth features without commercial considerations. Bounthavy Suvilay could thus entrust Erwan Higuinen with sensitive topics such as “the place of women in the video game job market, the representation of homosexuality, the failures of crowdfunding.”

This independence came at a cost. Ankama fully financed the magazine “certainly at a loss,” as one reader observed on specialized forums, “and so just for the glory of one day saying: ‘I published a video game magazine, adult, well-written, complete, ad-free, with real in-depth articles like there are practically none left in the media.'”

The model initially worked. The magazine, with a print run of 33,000 copies, found distribution in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada. Critical reviews were excellent, and IG Magazine quickly forged a reputation for quality in the specialized field.

One of the magazine’s major assets was its art direction, entrusted to Boris Mirroir under the pseudonym “BenGrrr.” His artistic vision was particularly evident in the design of the covers, a complex process he described in detail. “Creating a cover means exposing yourself to a four-way tug-of-war: the editor-in-chief, the graphic designer, the publisher, and the test audience,” explains Bounthavy Suvilay in her memoirs. This collaborative approach, though sometimes conflictual, guaranteed visual quality.

The first issue perfectly illustrated this demand. Initially planned with the new characters from Street Fighter IV, the visual was ultimately revised to feature the iconic characters of the series. “The reasons for this rejection: the color was too greenish and nothing really stood out. Add to that the fact that these new characters were too ‘new’ to catch the eye of the potential consumer.”

The final version reflected Boris Mirroir’s perfectionism: “One last detail that no one noticed: on Bison’s epaulet, two ink stains depict Ken and Ryu fighting. Yes, the graphic designer is meticulous…” This attention to detail characterized all his work on IG Magazine.

Christophe Regnault, a Lyon-based illustrator, also collaborated with the magazine under the pseudonym “Chris” or “Bis.” Specializing in illustration for role-playing games and video game press, he worked notably on Julien Pirou’s column “Vie des Hauts Ludiques.”

This artistic team helped make IG Magazine an aesthetic object, “somewhere between a magazine and a coffee table book,” as announced from the start by the editorial line.

The Editorial Approach: Treating Video Games as Art

The editorial line of IG Magazine was structured around six main sections that reflected its comprehensive approach to video games:

Reviews: The first section was dedicated to new releases and retrospective features. Unlike competing magazines, reviews made up only a minor part of the content. “For me, reviews were necessary when they were part of a follow-up on the game over several issues, as a conclusion,” explains Yann Bernard. Their purpose was “not to answer the question ‘should you buy this game?’ but rather ‘what is it about? What did the developers want to do? How did they go about it and did they succeed? Where does this game fit in video game history?'”

Economy: A section presenting trends in the video game industry, covering jobs, products, and market developments.

People: Portraits of companies, developers, and industry figures, often unknown to the general public.

Culture: A section dedicated to the interactions between video games and other media, exploring cross-influences.

Retro: A section devoted to the history of games, consoles, and companies.

Geekzone: The final section offered lighter, more personal articles, including the famous comic strip “Haut Bas Gauche Droite.”

One particular innovation deserves to be highlighted: the comic strip “Haut Bas Gauche Droite” (HBGD), “the first comic strip that reviews video game titles.” Illustrated by Rachel Zimra alias “Kiri” and written by Grégoire Hellot alias “Goldengreg,” this series appeared at the end of each issue as “the cherry on top, humorously and lightly concluding the 268 pages of the magazine.”

This structure positioned IG Magazine more as a cultural review than a traditional leisure magazine. “Considering video games as a cultural product worthy of analysis in the same way as literature, cinema, or the fine arts,” the editorial team offered “many pages to this video game memory.”

One of the first issues perfectly illustrated this approach with features such as “From Pixel to the Big Screen: Video Games Go to the Movies” or “The New Place of the Body in Video Games.” These topics were unthinkable in traditional magazines.

The Marketing Strategy: Between Innovation and Missteps

To promote this new magazine, Ankama Presse developed an original marketing strategy, leveraging its partnerships with the channel Nolife. “In 2009, we did a series of photographs for a series of posters that ultimately did not materialize. Among the people photographed were Julien Pirou and Alex Pilot from Nolife, the SoulCalibur champion Kayane, and Marcus.”

These photo sessions reflected the initial ambition of the project and IG Magazine‘s connections with the French geek ecosystem. Marcus (Marc Lacombe), an iconic figure in video game television, lent his voice to several humorous commercials created by Davy Mourier and the team behind Noob.

These ads, broadcast on Nolife and the web, left a lasting impression with their offbeat tone. “For the first ad in the series, before Davy took over the writing, I had proposed to Alex Pilot the pitch about the toilets,” recalls Bounthavy Suvilay. The anecdote reveals the artisanal spirit that characterized the early days: “We didn’t yet have the printed magazine in hand. So, we had to make a fake magazine and glue the image of the cover, which had just come out at the last minute, on a Nolife printer… Look closely at the character turning the pages: they’re blank!”

However, this marketing strategy suffered from several limitations. Distribution quickly became an issue: “This magazine is not always easy to find in newsstands,” noted one reader, forcing interested parties to order via “Ankama’s mail-order website.” This limited distribution significantly hindered commercial development.

Even more problematic, “newsagents, not knowing what to do with this new product, placed it where they thought the magazine should be: in the comics or manga section…” This confusion revealed a fundamental problem with product identification. “Lesson learned: for a new magazine, it’s better to specify in a big fluorescent yellow sticker which category the magazine belongs to,” the team concluded bitterly.

The early days of IG Magazine proved promising. Specialized critics unanimously praised the quality of the project. “It weighs a pound and it’s as beautiful as a book!” enthused Trazom from Gameblog. The magazine won over a knowledgeable audience in search of in-depth content.

“I have rarely seen a journal, in any media, be so rich, interesting, and well-written,” testified a reader on the forums. This critical acclaim allowed IG Magazine to stand out in a saturated editorial landscape.

Julien Pirou has fond memories of this period: “What I particularly appreciated about IG was that we could really submit article ideas on very specific, even obscure topics, and there was always a little space for them in the magazine.” This editorial freedom allowed for unprecedented topics, such as his article on ball games: “You had contacted me saying, ‘Are you interested in an article on ball games?’ Then, probably alerted by my silence on the other end of the line, you quickly clarified: ‘I’m talking about games like Marble Madness or Super Monkey Ball, okay!'”.

Erwan Higuinen particularly appreciated “the possibility of writing long texts, whereas elsewhere, I am most often confined to short formats.”

However, as early as 2010, warning signs appeared. Circulation dropped dramatically, from 33,000 to 10,000 copies. This sharp decline revealed a fundamental gap between editorial ambition and market expectations. Otakia noted in 2010 that while Dofus Mag “sells 70,000 copies,” IG Magazine struggled with its “10,000 copies.” This difference illustrated the difficulty in reaching an audience beyond hardcore video game fans.

Even more problematic, the global economic crisis of 2008-2009 hit the press sector hard. Advertising budgets shrank, consumption habits changed, and even established magazines struggled to maintain their sales. The constraints of remote work also began to weigh on the team. Yann Bernard pointed out that “the closing dates were very early, and with the bimonthly publication rhythm, it made writing reviews on time complicated.”

The Painful Concession: The Introduction of Advertising

Faced with growing commercial difficulties, Ankama Presse had to make a painful choice. Starting with issue 12, advertising made its appearance in IG Magazine. This decision marked a symbolic and practical turning point.

Officially, the introduction of advertising aimed to “not increase the price of the magazine, due to the rising cost of paper.”

The arrival of advertising immediately provoked “the anger of fans.” Loyal readers saw it as a betrayal of the magazine’s core values. Worse, this introduction was made “at the expense of characteristic elements of the magazine (section transitions, mini-comics…).”

This evolution revealed the trap in which IG Magazine found itself. By giving in on the absence of advertising, the magazine lost part of its identity without solving its structural economic problems. Advertising revenues remained insufficient to offset the high production costs.

The tension between editorial quality and economic viability became increasingly difficult to manage. Julien Pirou noted bitterly: “The only point that sometimes annoyed me in IG, especially during the magazine’s early years, was the ‘zeal’ of the proofreaders (…) But it sometimes happened that the corrections were not justified. For example, one of the proofreaders, who was averse to puns, would remove them from my articles… (…) to discover that entire sentences had been changed, deemed too heavy, and replaced with statements contrary to the original meaning (…) Fortunately, things improved significantly afterward, and again, 99% of the time everything went very well.”

The year 2012 marked a dramatic turning point for the entire French video game press. The judicial liquidation of MER7, the main publisher of video game magazines in France, led to the disappearance of 15 titles representing 300,000 copies in monthly circulation.

This bloodbath directly affected IG Magazine. By the end of 2012, Ankama recorded losses of €250,000 for its magazine. These disastrous figures forced management to make a painful decision. As Gamekult noted in 2014: “If ToT believes he has ‘laid one of the best, if not the best’ video game magazine, the initiative still shows €250,000 in losses at the end of 2012.”

This situation was part of a broader sector crisis. As Acrimed observed, “after the bankruptcy of MER7, the video game print press was reduced to four magazines (Canard PC, Role Playing Game, PC4WAR, IG), two of which would disappear in early 2013.”

The economic context left no room for maneuver. Rising production costs, declining advertising revenues, and above all, the shift in consumption habits toward digital media weakened the entire sector.

For IG Magazine, the situation became untenable. The business model, already precarious due to the initial absence of advertising, failed to balance even after the late introduction of advertising. The period from January to April 2013 likely marked the time when internal discussions about the magazine’s future intensified dramatically.

On May 27, 2013, Ankama Presse published a statement that sounded the death knell for IG Magazine. “Faced with economic difficulties, the measures already implemented by the team were not enough. It would have been impossible to go further without compromising the quality of the magazine.”

“It is therefore, not without pain, that the publisher has chosen to stop on a positive note rather than to continue at all costs, at the risk of disappointing its readers.” This decision showed a certain elegance, but also a bitter failure.

The announcement fell like a guillotine for the team and loyal readers. The 27th issue, released on July 26, 2013, definitively closed the adventure. This final issue, true to the magazine’s spirit, still offered “a quality program, focused on the indie scene and retro” with features on Grandia, Grand Theft Auto, and James Pond.

In total, IG Magazine published 27 issues, 7 specials, 3 special editions, and a book on RPGs. While this output was quantitatively modest, it represented a unique publication in the history of French video game journalism.

Despite its commercial failure, Julien Pirou summed up the experience with emotion: “More than anything, working for IG gave me the satisfaction of having participated in the best video game magazine of the 2010s (let’s not be afraid of words).”

The magazine demonstrated that a cultural and intellectual approach to video games could appeal to a quality audience, even if limited. “Note also that the ‘conflict of interest’ of a game editor/publisher editing its own magazine is very well managed; there is barely a logical and sensible reference to Dofus in a feature on MMOs and not a gram of self-promotion,” noted Raton-Laveur in 2013 and added “(…) obscenely rich thanks to Dofus. Every time I go to a convention where they have a booth, the other exhibitors are amazed, saying ‘where do they get all that money from?’ They save Nolife, they make their own cartoons and comics, and now they’re publishing their own video game magazine (Dofus Mag aside), and even Street Fighter IV is on the cover.”

Erwan Higuinen kept particularly positive memories of the working conditions: “I particularly appreciated the relationships with the editor-in-chief and the editorial secretary, both before and after writing my articles. I had really not been used to being able to reread the pages where my texts appeared and possibly make last-minute corrections.”

The influence of IG Magazine was felt in subsequent attempts at quality video game journalism. The editorial approach, the mook format, and the initial absence of advertising inspired other projects, although none managed to replicate the ambition and quality of Ankama’s magazine.

Bounthavy Suvilay kept fond memories of her readers: “It’s always very encouraging to see the images that our readers send us on social networks. They take the time to stage their magazine collection. It’s reassuring to know that we didn’t work for nothing and that the issues are kept after reading and not thrown away after consumption.”

The editorial team of IG Magazine went on to other projects. Bounthavy Suvilay published in 2018 with Bragelonne “Indie Games: History, Artwork, Sound Design of Independent Video Games,” thus continuing her academic reflection on the video game medium.

Julien Pirou continued his career in video games, becoming a Creative Designer and writer for Might & Magic X: Legacy at Ubisoft, thus fulfilling the dream of many enthusiasts: making a living from his passion for games.

The failure of IG Magazine revealed the limits of Ankama’s economic model. While the studio could afford to fund loss-making creative projects thanks to the revenues from Dofus, this approach quickly reached its limits in the face of significant recurring losses.

More broadly, the IG Magazine adventure illustrated the structural difficulties of print media in the face of the digital revolution. In 2013, Arrêt sur Images noted that “with this disappearance, ‘there will only be three video game press titles left.'” This prescient observation underlined the scale of the crisis then affecting the sector. As L’Observateur noted in its tribute to the magazine: “IG Magazine is gone, and old players feel a little orphaned.”

The IG Magazine experience cruelly illustrated that in the publishing industry, editorial quality alone is not enough to guarantee commercial success. Sometimes, the best creative intentions collide brutally with the relentless economic imperatives, and the most beautiful editorial projects sink into collective oblivion. But as Julien Pirou nostalgically pointed out: “The sadness that such a beautiful adventure is ending” should not overshadow the pride “of having participated in the best video game magazine of the 2010s.”

Ankama Presse no longer exists as such since 2015, when it ceased its activities after the discontinuation of Dofus Mag. It was dissolved and merged with Ankama Éditions, the publishing branch of the Ankama group, which now focuses on comics, manga, novels, and artbooks, without periodic publications.

In 2025, Ankama no longer publishes any magazines. Former publications such as Dofus Mag, Wakfu Mag, IG Magazine, and Akiba Manga were all discontinued between 2011 and 2015. Although some articles from Dofus Mag were republished as webtoons in 2024 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Dofus, this does not constitute a regular resumption of publication. Community initiatives such as the Gazette Mag, linked to the game Wakfu, exist and are supported by Ankama, but they are produced by fans and not directly edited by the group.

This article was written based on archives and testimonies collected on the web, particularly the valuable post-mortem testimonies gathered by Bounthavy Suvilay on her blog. If you lived through this era and would like to share your memories of IG Magazine, feel free to let us know in the comments or on our social networks.

The watch party was structured around three main sequences that complemented each other. It began with a pre-show on set, where ToT, Kuri, and Poupik revisited the origins of the film. They shared how the idea for a feature-length movie emerged as a continuation of Wakfu, the unique challenges of cinema, and the years of work leading up to its theatrical release.

The heart of the evening was, of course, the full re-broadcast of DOFUS – Book 1: Julith on YouTube, offered for free to mark this symbolic anniversary. A decade after its release, the film retained all its visual power, especially in the grand final battle sequence, often cited by the team as one of their favorite moments.

Finally, a long late-show took over, designed as an open discussion with the audience. This was when things really took off. The exchanges between the panel and viewers, fueled by countless messages in the chat, brought the most anticipated questions to the forefront. It was in this final segment, enriched in real time by audience input, that most of the major announcements were made.

DOFUS – Book 2: A Project on Hold, Not an Abandoned Idea

One of the most pressing questions naturally concerned a potential DOFUS – Book 2. ToT didn’t beat around the bush: the desire to continue the story has never really left him. The original film was conceived as the first installment of a trilogy, with the idea of exploring two Dofus per feature film and gradually expanding Joris’s family, such as introducing his grandmother.

Yet, despite this initial plan, no Book 2 is currently in production. The reasons are both practical and emotional. The 2016 release was particularly tough: the film hit theaters just after the Bataclan attacks, with a stadium destruction scene that painfully echoed current events. This was compounded by a disastrous launch, marked by an age restriction deemed excessive, a collapse in the number of screenings—initially planned for around 300 theaters, but ultimately reduced to just 70—and massive piracy upon release. The film’s image was judged “not cool enough” by some players, and the difficulty in reaching a wider audience further doomed its success. For the team, this combination of factors was experienced as a genuine shock, and revisiting a project so directly associated with this failure, even ten years later, remains a significant burden.

Kuri begins by saying there’s nothing to regret, even if some choices were difficult. The idea of “changing the release date” is mentioned jokingly, but they quickly emphasize the spontaneity of creative decisions. According to them, trying to rewrite history makes little sense: a project is born from a specific mindset at a given moment. Attempting to recreate that same spirit years later would yield nothing genuine. Technically, Ankama tested a hybrid approach, where each shot was handled by a duo consisting of a traditional animator and a Flash animator. This method preserved the richness of hand-drawn animation while benefiting from the flexibility of digital tools, and it heavily influenced the visual style of Wakfu seasons 3 and 4.

The discussion then shifts to how Ankama operates. ToT reminds everyone that the company is independent, not publicly traded, and without major investors. This means great freedom, but also constant risk-taking. They describe themselves as “bulldozers,” sometimes “a bit foolish,” who keep moving forward, accumulating experiences, successes, and failures. They admit to making “lots of mistakes,” but explain that they simply don’t have time to dwell on them, as they’re already absorbed by the next projects.

Poupik emphasizes the “heart” of the teams. According to her, there are passionate people facing passionate people: the desire to “blow the audience’s mind” is what drives the studio to keep going, despite the setbacks. Kuri points out that the public only sees the tip of the iceberg: the completed projects. Behind the scenes, many concepts remain stalled, not mature enough or set aside for various reasons, perhaps to resurface one day.

ToT jokes: “Tomorrow, if I win the lottery, we’re definitely making a sequel.” Beneath the humor, it’s clear that the future of Julith depends mainly on securing substantial financial resources.

To give an idea of the film’s production scale: the answer is clear—between 6 and 7 million euros were invested in production. Additionally, the marketing budget was initially estimated at 150,000–200,000 euros, but Poupik later revised this upward, specifying that Ankama contributed part of this amount “out of pocket,” supplemented by partners. Still, they stress that for a feature film, these are limited resources.

Where the discussion becomes truly interesting is when they address criticisms like “there should have been more marketing.” According to them, the campaign was far from timid: it included coverage in numerous media outlets, various projects, multiple premieres, and even a large village set up in Lille’s main square. In their view, they would do exactly the same thing today. Ankama doesn’t “do marketing for marketing’s sake”: the studio stands by communication actions and products it genuinely believes in, things they want to have at home, things they themselves want to watch.

Poupik shared an anecdote about creating real Lutti candies featuring Dofus characters, after a factory visit and the on-site production of 3D molds, in an atmosphere reminiscent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For his part, ToT discussed the personal inspiration behind Kerubim and Atcham: the contrast between his two cats, a fluffy Persian and a clingy Sphynx, and mentioned another intimate scene that particularly moved ToT: the moment when Jojo calls his grandfather an “old wreck,” drawn from a painful childhood memory.

Finally, a few lighter anecdotes punctuated the discussion, such as a security guard convinced the offices were haunted due to voices heard at night, which turned out to be ToT’s television at a neighbor’s place.

Kuri, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of DOFUS – Book 1: Julith, explains why remaking the film identically today is impossible. Ten years have passed, everyone has matured, with a sharper and less naive perspective on the project. Making a feature film remains the Holy Grail for animators, but the experience was also painful, marked by high expectations and a sense of disappointment after its release.

The film also provided an opportunity to collaborate with notable figures in animation. Lead animator Yoshimichi Tamura, for example, is cited as one of the key figures of the project; an amusing detail mentioned during the evening recalls that his father founded the first aikido federation in France. The voice actors recorded their lines directly in Roubaix, at Ankama’s studios, and their sessions were filmed to help animators fine-tune the characters’ expressions and acting.

On a practical level, Ankama also explains that its schedule is fully booked for several years. Even an immediate decision wouldn’t allow production to start for another four or five years, as current series need to be completed first. The door isn’t closed, however. ToT believes that a successful crowdfunding campaign, similar to the one that saved Wakfu season 3, could serve as leverage to convince a distributor and secure the necessary funding. Thus, it’s less a definitive impossibility than a distant horizon, contingent on both team availability and strong public mobilization.

WELSH & SHEDAR

While Book 2 remains hypothetical, the evening primarily highlighted another project directly tied to the film’s universe: Welsh & Shedar. This new series takes place about forty to fifty years after the events of DOFUS and follows the journey of Welsh, a sixteen-year-old cook. On his birthday, he discovers he is actually the heir to the throne of Bonta, pulling him away from his kitchen and thrusting him into much broader political and personal stakes.

The series’ originality lies in its culinary focus. Each episode will feature a real recipe, often inspired by Northern French cuisine. To enable the Japanese studio handling the animation to faithfully reproduce these dishes, ToT himself filmed the cooking preparations, which then served as references for the animators. This blend of everyday life, local culture, and fantasy is quintessentially Ankama. For readers wanting to delve deeper, a recap article dedicated to the series is already available on Krozmotion, with more details on its production and universe.

Welshedar is being produced in Japan, with character design by Nakashiki and an external animation team chosen for both their mastery of traditional drawing and their ability to adopt an anime-like tone. Ankama, however, emphasizes continuity in writing: the script is developed in-house, ensuring consistency with the rest of the Krosmoz universe. The series is scheduled for release in late 2026, as part of the studio’s 25th anniversary.

Even though Welsh & Shedar doesn’t directly recycle the abandoned Book 2 script, the series is designed to extend the film’s legacy. Some ideas intended for the original trilogy are reinterpreted or hinted at, and a few lore connections will allow viewers to bridge the two works.

Wakfu, the Final Season of the Series

The other major announcement of the evening concerns Wakfu season 5. The team confirmed it outright: this season will be the last of the TV series. The stated goal is to conclude the story in a satisfying way, pushing further than season 4 in both visual and narrative terms.

At the time of the watch party, more than half of the season was already written and storyboarded, and several episodes were in animation production. The chosen format—twenty-six episodes—allows for the scope of the early seasons, while benefiting from the experience gained from tighter arcs. The background teams are again working at a very high level, aiming to surpass even the acclaimed environments of season 4. Kuri mentions animation quotas approaching those of a feature film, indicating that Ankama wants to make this final season a kind of grand finale.

Narratively, season 5 promises more confrontations, monsters, and intense emotional moments. ToT speaks of an emotional climax, while staying true to the series’ usual tone, balancing humor, adventure, and drama. The release is currently targeted for 2027, with France Télévisions as the historic partner and main broadcaster in France. No global platform has been announced yet.

In passing, ToT also confides that he is considering a Wakfu film for after season 5, with a darker tone and a treatment designed for the big screen. This is not yet a formally launched project, but rather a perspective the studio is keeping in mind.

Waven and the Manga The Great Wave, the Other Side of the Krosmoz

Beyond Wakfu, Ankama is already preparing the transition to Waven, a new animated series conceived as a kind of reboot without denying what came before. Waven builds on the narrative foundations established by the games and Wakfu, but seeks to introduce a new entry point into the universe, for both old and new audiences. Like the video game, it has also struggled to attract a new audience. Find out more about the Waven series in an upcoming recap article on what we know and what remains to be confirmed about the series.

Between these, the manga series Wakfu – The Great Wave serves as a bridge. Volume 3 has just been finalized and is set for release in April; the series will total seven volumes. On the official timeline, The Great Wave is set after Wakfu season 5 and before Waven, making it a crucial link for understanding certain developments in the universe. Ankama presents it as a central piece of the overall narrative, even if not all viewers will go through the manga.

Morchiken, Ankama’s Animated Lab

The evening also provided an update on Morshiken, a unique project in Ankama’s galaxy. Originally, it was simply a pedagogical exercise for animation apprentices: fifteen students, selected from the best talents across eleven e-artsup campuses, were integrated full-time into a dedicated space within Ankama Animation. They participated in all stages of creation—storyboarding, character design, compositing, backgrounds, scriptwriting—and even benefited from a writing workshop with ToT himself. Over the sessions, the teams became fully invested and produced a genuine ten-minute pilot episode, premiered at the Annecy Festival in June 2025, entirely focused on the studio’s behind-the-scenes and a very meta humor.

The series is now envisioned as a future mini-series of thirteen ten-minute episodes, released for free on YouTube, without broadcaster pressure or major financial stakes. This positioning allows the artists to be more daring, experiment with irreverent ideas, and speak candidly about the daily realities of production. However, the priority remains Wakfu season 5, which explains the lack of a precise schedule—no official date has been set beyond a likely 2025 release. The goal is to release several episodes of Morshiken before S5, offering a breath of fresh air amid the major projects.

For more on Morshiken, its characters, and its plot, we have a comprehensive recap article dedicated on Krozmotion. Feel free to read it to learn more about the series.

Princesse Dragon, Princesse Reinette, and Physical Media

On the feature film front, the universe of Princesse Dragon hasn’t been forgotten. A new film set in the same world, tentatively titled Princesse Reinette, is in development. Again, no date has been given; ToT acknowledges juggling numerous projects, some already public and others still confidential, making any announcement premature.

In parallel, Ankama is working on bringing back DVDs and Blu-rays for its animated productions. The goal is to offer physical editions of DOFUS – Book 1: Julith, Princesse Dragon, and other series or films within the year, sold primarily via the Ankama Shop. Princesse Dragon has never had a DVD or Blu-ray release, and the film isn’t even available on legal streaming platforms, making this announcement particularly anticipated. For a studio addressing an audience attached to collectibles, artbooks, and special editions, this return to physical media aligns with what the community has long been asking for.

A Year of Events for the 25th Anniversary, with an Ankama Convention at Japan Expo

The watch party also served as a springboard to announce the event program for the coming years. 2026 will mark both the 10th anniversary of the Dofus film and Ankama’s 25th anniversary, and the studio intends to celebrate in person.

Among the highlights, the most notable is the confirmation of an Ankama Convention within Japan Expo Paris. The idea is to have a dedicated space, designed as a mini-convention within the festival, rather than just a simple booth. The team emphasizes that attendees should pay close attention to ticketing, as the ambition for this strong comeback seems high. Other appearances are planned, including Polymanga in Switzerland and various events in Northern France, to bring the studio closer to its community across several regions.

In terms of production, ToT sums up the strategy with a simple line: aim for at least one major series or mini-series per year, alternating between long formats like Wakfu and shorter formats like Lance-Dur or Bestiale. Welshedar in 2026, Wakfu season 5 in 2027, and Waven afterward fit precisely into this logic.

In the end, this anniversary event showed a studio that doesn’t just celebrate its past, but uses it as a springboard. Ten years after the release of a film harshly judged at the time, Ankama embraces its legacy, claims what it brought artistically, and prepares new stories that extend its themes.

If all these announcements could be captured, translated, and put into perspective, it’s largely thanks to the work of fans present during the live streams. Messages in the chat served as a relay between the panel and the international community, asking the right questions at the right time. On this point, special recognition must go to the Discord server “Krosmoz Fans United” and Uelman, who compiled, organized, and shared information throughout the evening. Without this volunteer work, many of these details would have been lost in the live stream.

From here, the ball is now in both Ankama’s and the fans’ court. The coming years will tell if this momentum, born around a long-underrated film, can lead to a new animated chapter of Dofus on the big screen.

Throughout the year, it will be possible to follow this evolving story through recap articles dedicated to Ankama Animations’ upcoming series. These articles will help keep an eye on what’s coming, what’s changing, and how the studio continues to explore its Krosmoz on screen. In parallel, a series of “Once Upon a Time” texts will revisit these abandoned, reworked, or never-released projects that fill Ankama’s drawers. A first comprehensive article on Kwaan has been available since January, and another on Wakfu Raiders, equally interesting, offers a precious window into these detours the studio has taken and then left behind.

Seeing Ankama try, attempt, and take risks is ultimately good news for its fans: it means there are still stories to tell, and the legend of the Krosmoz isn’t just going in circles.

Once upon a time, there was a game far from the beaten paths of the Krosmoz. Kwaan, developed by Ankama’s Montreal studio, offered a unique experience: a multiplayer cooperative game where competition gave way to collaboration, and violence was replaced by the creation of a harmonious ecosystem. Yet, despite its bold innovations and concept, this mystical project quietly faded away in 2017, after less than three years of existence.

A look back at the story of a fascinating experiment that never managed to win over the masses. This feature is part of a retrospective series on Ankama’s various projects, following our previous focus on the mobile game Wakfu Raiders.

First Steps: A Laboratory of Experimentation (2012-2013)

Long before Ankama’s official involvement, Kwaan was born as a passionate, artisanal project. Devblogs from the time reveal a deeply experimental approach. In November 2012, the team introduced itself simply: “Kwaan is a small MMORPG” and “Kwaan is a living world. Kwaan wants you to stay and start discovering things for yourself.”

The development process revealed a craft and community-driven approach. The team started with a homemade engine before migrating to Unity in early 2013: “We are currently migrating our code from a homemade engine to Unity.”

The first tests revealed the collaborative spirit that would always characterize Kwaan. In December 2012, the team organized its first stress tests with only 10 people: “There were 10 of us, and most of us enjoyed trying to figure out what the hell this game was supposed to be about.” This approach, where players had to discover the game for themselves, would become a signature of the project.

The devblogs reveal a fascinating phenomenon: Kwaan attracted former players of Glitch, Tiny Speck’s experimental MMO that closed in December 2012. The comments on the devblogs were telling: “I was an alpha tester for Glitch” or “Former Glitchen! I’ll try it!” The development team was fully aware of this and even addressed them with a “BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL YOU GLITCH ORPHANS.”

By May 2013, the community had reached 100 registered people, a milestone the team celebrated: “We’re officially a Tribe, folks!” and “Welcome to all you ex-Glitchens.” This player base, though modest, was already passionate and engaged.

The team explicitly defined their creation as a challenge to conventions: “We know that promising a unique experience with an MMO is a dangerous exercise, and many hopes have been crushed by the reality of the market and the complexities of designing a meaningful experience not based on consumption and grinding.”

The core concept was revolutionary: “Kwaan is a MINUSCULE experience. It’s like a ‘Fairy in a Bottle’: it’s a miniature, it’s free, it’s an experience, just to see if we can maintain a game revolving around mystery, weird features, and pure absurdity.”

The mythological universe was dense and original. The Dwaal were described as “born from the mud of the Great Lake. They were sculpted by the hands of the Goddess and received life from the flowers she placed on their heads.” Each Dwaal possessed an Aat, a natural element that gave them their unique personality: “everything that comes from the earth, leaves, vegetables, rocks, mud.”

A Revolutionary Concept: Cooperation as the Only Way

The basic principle of Kwaan radically broke with the established codes of multiplayer video games. Players embodied small plant creatures called Dwaal, special agents of nature whose mission was to keep the Kwaan, a mystical World-Tree, healthy. This collective responsibility was at the heart of the experience: no combat, no trade, no competition, but pure cooperation oriented towards a common goal.

Eric Léveillée specified the game’s vision in his pitch: “The game is an online multiplayer adventure and the goal of the game is that, with a community of other players, you must keep the tree happy. Because if you don’t perform rituals every day with other people, if you don’t do it, then the server eventually dies and you lose all the progress you’ve made.”

Benoit Delassus developed this fundamental mechanic: “The first goal for each server is to ensure that their world survives. These are quests that must be redone every day on a 24-hour basis. And so, we have what we call rituals, which are cooperative missions.” These daily rituals created a natural rhythm that forced players to log in regularly and coordinate their efforts.

The most radical aspect of the system was revealed by Benoit: “And if we don’t succeed, it loses its mood and if it becomes sad to death, the game stops because the server dies […] There were six servers at the game’s launch. Four of them died.” The mortality of the servers dramatically illustrated the challenges posed by a gameplay entirely dependent on cooperation.

The mortality of the servers was a major structural problem. Benoit explained: “Originally, we wanted the server to restart directly, but then we thought that if the servers are dead, it’s because there was no one to take care of them.”

One of the most innovative aspects concerned the autonomous ecosystem described by David Calvo: “One thing we are very proud of is that Kwaan produces its own pollution – crafted objects can rot – and players can eat the rot and then digest it. It’s part of the system’s autonomy to make it more ‘alive’.”

Benoit Delassus described the narrative approach: “For now, there are only four that run in a loop. Every 24-hour day, a new story appears. Then it creates events in the world.” These cyclical stories were theoretically supposed to be regularly enriched to maintain player interest. The initial ambition was considerable: “We started with a base of 365 (…) We started with a base of cycles and once the game was perfectly finalized in this dynamic, we would only have to add stories.”

The gameplay mixed several genres in an original way: point-and-click, platform, and RPG. The Dwaal could not jump, a constraint that forced players to use a grapple to cling to surfaces and reach elevated platforms. This unique movement mechanic created a different approach to exploration, where every move had to be calculated and cooperation became natural to access the most difficult areas.

Delassus’s thesis revealed precise technical details about Kwaan’s development. The game was built on Unity with scripts developed in C# under Visual Studio. This modern technical base allowed for crucial development flexibility for experimentation. The team used Ankama’s in-house tools: one for the world map and another for multiplayer networking. For the user interface, the team opted for Flash, while the graphics were created under Photoshop. This hybrid technical architecture allowed for rapid adjustments.

One aspect of Kwaan’s development was the exceptionally close relationship between developers and players. Eric Léveillée described his daily approach: “I was very close to the community in the game; we had a lot of interactions with them. For example, in the morning, the first thing I did was launch the game. Kwaan has public servers, so we could go on all the servers; I would go on a server.”

“Either I talked with the players, or I just watched what they were doing. I watched, I observed from the outside without interacting with them so they wouldn’t necessarily see that I was a programmer”

Eric Léveillée

Benoit Delassus confirmed this philosophy: “We really focused on cooperation between players. It was one of the first blocking aspects of the game because cooperation implied that players had to teach each other. There was no tutorial at the beginning of the game.” This deliberate absence of a tutorial forced community interactions and created authentic bonds between players.

This philosophy had its roots in the pre-Ankama period, when the team already declared: “Keep in mind, however, that the game is a mystery and it’s your role to solve it.” The original devblogs testified to this collaborative approach from the design stage: “Part of the game is actually making the game as you go along.”

The team’s responsiveness impressed the community. Eric Léveillée explained: “Often, I would talk with the players and draw sketches, then five minutes later in our code, the rules were fixed and corrected. It was as simple as that.” This development velocity was made possible by the small size of the team and the game’s flexible technical architecture.

Critical Reception and the Paradox of Visibility

The player community expressed enthusiastic opinions during interviews. In the podcast “On a juste une vie,” several players testified: “not like the others, a particularly friendly community, Ankama-style community” and mentioned “a very endearing universe with optimal accessibility.”

Benoit Delassus reported on the early access reception: “We have 31 reviews, I think. I don’t remember the exact number, but something like that for the game. And they are all positive except one.” These encouraging figures masked, however, the small user base that would prove problematic for the game’s survival.

Yet, Kwaan experienced a spectacular media moment. On January 22, 2016, the famous German streamer GRONKH, with his 600,000 followers, streamed the game for only 30 minutes and attracted 25,955 simultaneous viewers.

The barrier to entry was significant. Eric Léveillée acknowledged: “Kwaan is really a game that is not easy to get into. It’s a bit by design; we wanted it to be that way. We wanted players in the game to ask themselves and say ‘what am I doing?’” This assumed complexity created a high learning curve that discouraged some new players.

The developers had to adapt their approach in response to feedback. Eric explained: “We realized that we really needed to help players who were starting the game with tutorials.”

Identified Mistakes: Retrospective Analysis

Benoit Delassus’s thesis offered a lucid self-criticism of the mistakes made during development. The main fault identified concerned communication: “having neglected communication (…) was one of the important mistakes of our team.” This negligence partly explains why the game never found its audience despite its originality.

The communication strategy around Kwaan suffered from several limitations. David Calvo discussed the presentation challenges: “The hardest part is making players understand the depth of the game when they only see the surface – and don’t want to dig to understand why we use familiar figures to create another form of game.”

This conceptual complexity made the game difficult to present in a few sentences. Eric Léveillée‘s one-minute pitch illustrated this difficulty: “The goal of the game is that, with a community of other players, you must keep the tree happy because if you don’t perform daily rituals with other people (…) you get a community of people and you work together.” Despite its conciseness, this summary struggled to convey the richness and originality of the proposed experience.

The absence of spectacular mechanics made the game poorly suited to streaming and viral videos. Unlike action or competition games, Kwaan offered a contemplative and collaborative experience that was difficult to capture in short, impactful video formats. This inadequacy likely contributed to limiting its visibility, except for the exceptional phenomenon of the GRONKH stream, which showed that a single influencer could generate considerable buzz without converting this attention into a lasting user base.

The Closure and Its Lessons

The announced closure of Kwaan in October 2017 marked the end of a bold experiment. Eric Léveillée shared his reflections on the lessons learned: “One lesson I learned is the weight of overcomplicating things for the sake of technology or the idea, but bringing it back to the player’s pleasure. It’s something I learned a lot.”

This realization highlighted one of the project’s pitfalls: technical and conceptual sophistication had sometimes taken precedence over immediate accessibility. Eric continued: “It was my first multiplayer experience, and it was very formative.”

Delassus’s thesis offered a personal perspective on this formative experience: “This internship was my fourth in video games, and will only be the first with a finished and distributed game. But it was also the longest and most instructive, introducing me to all the stages of building a game, within a small team of passionate people.”

A Digital Ghost: The Impossible Resurrection

Today, Kwaan still exists in a particularly cruel phantom form. It remains possible to buy a Steam key for a few euros on resale sites, and these keys still activate without issue on the platform. However, this activation leads only to a bitter disappointment: after installation, the game detects no available servers and stubbornly refuses to launch.

This tragic situation highlights the total absence of community initiative to preserve Kwaan’s legacy. Unlike other cult MMOs that find a second life through fan-created private servers, Kwaan has not benefited from any community resurrection attempts. This inertia is all the more frustrating as the game had all the ingredients to appeal to creative communities.

At a time when phenomena like Reddit’s r/Place or the French Pixel War demonstrate the massive public appetite for collaborative creation, one can only regret this missed opportunity. With its gameplay based on shared artistic creation and violence-free cooperation, Kwaan could have found an audience.

The Kwaan experience probably influenced Ankama’s subsequent reflections on the balance between innovation and accessibility. The developers’ testimonies revealed a passionate team that pushed the boundaries of what a multiplayer game could be, creating an authentically collaborative experience in a landscape dominated by competition.

Kwaan remains a precious testimony of what video games can be when they free themselves from commercial constraints to explore new narrative and playful territories. Its failure in no way diminishes the value of this attempt, which enriches the creative heritage of the French industry and continues to inspire developers who refuse to settle for proven formulas.

Today, nearly eight years after its closure, requests persist sporadically: “Is there a chance for a sequel?” wondered a nostalgic player in 2019, while another pleaded in 2018 for “private servers” or an “offline version.” In 2020, a lone voice still called: “Please, bring this game back,” and more recently in 2023, someone simply asked if the game “still works.” These scattered requests, true digital messages in a bottle, testify to the lasting attachment of a handful of die-hard nostalgics who refuse to forget this unique experience. However, Ankama remains silent in the face of these community requests, leaving Kwaan definitively in digital limbo – purchasable but unplayable, a ghost of an experience that lived only for the time of a creative breath.

Masako Sakano began her career in the mid-1970s, during the golden age of Japanese TV animation. Her beginnings? On Great Mazinger in 1974, then on UFO Robot Grendizer (better known in France as Goldorak), where she worked as an assistant animator on clean-up and in-betweens—two terms we’ll explain simply.

She then moved on to key animation (key animation or genga in Japanese) on Goldorak and Zambot 3, and later contributed to Mobile Suit Gundam. Key animation is the heart of movement: the artist draws the main poses that tell the action.

In 1984, her path crossed that of Hayao Miyazaki on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. From the creation of Studio Ghibli in 1985, she joined Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and then worked on an impressive series of studio classics:

• My Neighbor Totoro
• Porco Rosso
• Princess Mononoke
• Whisper of the Heart
• Spirited Away

Still primarily working as an assistant animator, responsible for clean-up and in-betweens, she ensures that every line remains faithful to the character design and that every movement is fluid. She also worked on short films from the Ghibli Museum, such as Mei and the Baby Cat Bus or Monmon the Water Spider.

For over twenty to thirty years, she was one of those invisible hands ensuring precision, consistency, and smooth movement in Miyazaki’s films. In a 2009 interview in Lille, she sums up her profession with disarming simplicity:

“It’s traditional animation with a pencil and paper! (…) We also use the computer a bit, because we can’t do without it today.”

This pencil-and-paper creed, she kept it intact… until she arrived at Ankama’s studios in Roubaix. This humility also permeates her speech when discussing her own projects:

“I am a 2D animator at Ankama, but I don’t really have a project… I do have an idea that could work for a feature film, but I could never make a film like Miyazaki. It takes a team, money, talent, and I don’t have all that!”

In 2006, Masako Sakano made a move that few Japanese animators of her generation dared to make: she left Japan to settle in France. She began by collaborating with the studio Folimage on the feature film Mia and the Migou (2008), and quickly joined Ankama Animations, drawn to this young Roubaix-based studio that blended TV animation, video games, and transmedia for the still-in-development project Wakfu.

When asked what changed between Ghibli and her work in France, she replies with an almost amused smile:

“I used to spend my days drawing with pencil and paper. (…) Now, I work for Ankama, a French animation company, and it’s the same—I still use these tools.”

At Ankama Animations, Masako Sakano worked on several major projects that would mark fans of the Krosmoz. As we recalled in an article about Wakfu Season 3 in 2015, Ankama was multiplying ambitious animation projects at the time, and Masako Sakano became one of its discreet yet essential linchpins.

On the series Wakfu (2008–2017), she worked as a traditional animator and character posing artist (character posing artist) on about 52 episodes. In a studio mainly focused on Flash animation, her role was to bring that sense of organic movement, weight, and deformation straight from the Japanese school.

The Dofus Mag issue 3 (2009) “explains more broadly the situation of animation studios in France and Japan so that you can better understand why Ankama Animations is undoubtedly one of the riskiest bets of the guys from the North”, perfectly sums up the situation:

“Thus, Masako Sakano was doing traditional animation at Studio Ghibli and continues to do so (but in Roubaix). The only notable difference is that there are a few more computers between her pencil and the viewer.”

This statement is more than just a catchy slogan: it precisely describes what she brings to Wakfu. Her poses serve as the basis for animations later finalized in Flash, but the heart of the movement—the intention, the energy, the clear silhouette—comes from hand-drawn art.

This influence can be seen in many combat scenes, chases, and expressive character reactions: the timing (speed of movement) and spacing (distance between drawings) often evoke a more “sakuga” sensitivity—a Japanese term for particularly well-crafted and fluid animation sequences—inherited from her Ghibli years.

A French animator, Floriane Grivillers aka Foya, also testified on LinkedIn about the pleasure of working on Masako Sakano’s genga for Wakfu.

Masako Sakano is not limited to Wakfu. She also became one of the key players in the animation of Ankama’s other major franchise, Dofus: on the series Dofus: The Treasures of Kerubim (2013), she worked on 52 episodes as a lead character layout artist, meaning she was primarily responsible for the layout of characters and key poses.

A character layout artist, simply put, is the person who decides how characters are placed in the shot, the angle from which they are seen, and how they integrate into the background. It’s a mix of staging and technical drawing, preparing the ground for animators.

She then contributed to the feature film Dofus – Book I: Julith (2015), where her experience at Ghibli found a natural echo in the film’s cinematic ambitions. The project clearly displayed its ambitions at the Annecy Festival 2015: to raise the level of French animation with highly choreographed fights, fine expressions, and controlled cartoon deformations.

One project particularly crystallizes the dialogue between Japanese and French animation around Wakfu: the OVA “Ogrest, the Legend”, a 45-minute special produced by Ankama Japan in 2011. The film is often presented as a successful example of this French studio/Japanese talent cooperation. Unlike the main series, produced mainly in Flash, the Ogrest episode is animated entirely in traditional 2D, with a mixed Franco-Japanese team.

Today, Masako Sakano still works as a freelance 2D animator in France, collaborating with various studios while continuing her unique journey between Japan and Europe. On her LinkedIn profile, she describes herself as “Freelance 2D Traditional Animator” and specifies: “experienced in Japanese and French Animation Industry. I am always interested in cute projects, short films, and feature films.”

In September 2024, she posted on LinkedIn that she was looking for work in the Lille area or for international remote work. She is regularly invited to festivals (Paris Manga, Jonetsu, animation meetings) to talk about her profession and this dual professional culture.

For Wakfu fans, knowing that an animator who worked on in-betweens for My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away also worked on poses for Yugo, Amalia, or Kerubim gives a special flavor to every well-animated shot.

Masako Sakano is proof that between the forests of Totoro and the plains of the World of Twelve, there is sometimes just one line, drawn by pencil, by the same hand.

The ambition was substantial: to create an interactive experience that went beyond the usual streaming session. Lucien Melki, founder of Jump Influence, recalls the challenge set by Ankama: “We developed and created an extension directly on Twitch. For 3-4 months, there was design and development work with Dofus and the Jump teams.”

The result exceeded all expectations. On the very first day, over 66,000 people used the extension, a near-record on Twitch. Throughout the event, 167,500 users downloaded the extension, turning each live stream into a collective adventure where viewers fed Gargandyas, the mighty Titan of Osamodas, to evolve it from level 1 to level 100.

Bruno Vicaire, Influence Manager at Ankama, highlighted the results that “exceeded our wildest expectations”: over 100,000 unique users in less than a week, zero audience erosion during the first week of the game (a first for the Dofus category), and “a unique interactive and immersive experience.”

The campaign mobilized 350 creators (pro streamers) and over 600 streamers who shared the extension with their communities. In total, 250,000 people participated in this operation, making “Feed the Beast” one of the largest collaborative experiences ever carried out on Twitch. As Lucien Melki pointed out on LinkedIn, “We simply created the most popular interactive extension in the world on Twitch.”

The extension offered four types of interactive events that occurred regularly during the streams. Every 30 minutes, Forgemagic runes appeared on the overlay, requiring viewers to click quickly before they disappeared. Bosses also emerged, requiring players to answer quizzes about the Krosmoz universe correctly or cast the right elemental spell. Finally, some monsters could only be defeated by spamming the chat. This cross-stream approach allowed players to contribute to collective progress regardless of the channel they were watching, creating true synergy between the different communities.

Dofus audience statistics on Twitch testify to the effectiveness of this campaign. In July 2025, at the launch of “Feed the Beast,” the game recorded a spectacular 120% increase in average viewers compared to the previous month, rising from 893 to 1,964 average viewers [attached: statistics]. The peak number of viewers reached 12,244 on July 22, the day the event launched.

In August, despite the event gradually winding down on the 12th, the audience remained strong with 2,009 average viewers (+2.3% compared to July) and 1.49 million hours watched. The average number of streams increased from 31 in July to 38 in August, a 22.5% rise.

Ankama’s strategy for this campaign was part of a desire to enhance the viewer experience for organic content creators rather than investing large budgets in external creators. This approach paid off, creating a virtuous circle where the existing community became the main driver of the game’s promotion.

“This year, we chose to enhance the viewer experience for our organic content creators instead of spending large budgets on external creators.” – Bruno Vicaire

A strategy that generated an authentic and engaged audience, far removed from the ephemeral spikes often seen in traditional influencer campaigns.

Founded on March 1, 2022, with capital of €300,000, Blue Banshee was the result of a collaboration between three key figures. Étienne Jacquemain, game designer and creative director based in Ploemel, brought his expertise in video game development. Alongside him, David Kubacki, better known as Souillon, creator of the famous comic Maliki since 2004, served as art director. The third partner was none other than Ankama.

Souillon himself had worked at Ankama as a character designer for the video game Dofus before moving on to the animated series Wakfu. The Maliki comics, published by Ankama Éditions since 2007, had sold over 300,000 copies worldwide.

Maliki: Poison of the Past, a first game welcomed with enthusiasm but disappointing sales

Blue Banshee Studio had focused all its efforts on developing Maliki: Poison of the Past, a narrative turn-based RPG inspired by the eponymous comic. The game, developed over three years, was finally released on April 22, 2025, on PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch, the latter benefiting from console exclusivity.

The world of Maliki was not unknown to the public. Created in 2004, this humorous and autobiographical webcomic by Souillon had already won over a loyal community. The eight volumes of the comic series, published by Ankama Éditions, had demonstrated the public’s attachment to the character of Maliki, a young woman with pink hair accompanied by her cats Fëanor and Luma.

The game offers an original mechanic centered on time manipulation, allowing players to create strategic combos by sending characters into the past or future. The adventure follows Sand, a young woman thrust into an epic conflict against Poison, a plant creature threatening humanity across space-time. The game’s technical and artistic execution benefited from a soundtrack composed by Starrysky and renowned Japanese composer Motoi Sakuraba.

Despite generally positive critical reception with an average score of 76% and enthusiastic reviews, commercial sales did not follow. According to Étienne Jacquemain, “There were pre-orders amounting to €480,000 including merchandise, but very, very few sales after the game’s release.” This pre-order campaign via the French platform KuneKune had generated significant excitement with 7,300 pre-orders and 5,357 participants, raising hopes for reasonable commercial success for a studio of this size.

The timing of the release proved disastrous for Blue Banshee. On April 22, 2025, the launch day of Maliki: Poison of the Past, two other major productions overshadowed the visibility of the small Breton studio. “It’s a small game that was released at the same time as two big productions,” explains Étienne Jacquemain in his interview with Le Télégramme.

On one hand, Oblivion, a remake of an old cult role-playing game, was released the same day in what the industry calls a “shadow drop” – an unannounced surprise release. On the other hand, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also launched on that date and “was a huge hit,” according to the co-founder. “It was very tough; we released on the same day as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which was a huge hit. It’s not the same type of game; it’s a big production, but it’s kind of the same audience…” Étienne Jacquemain told Ouest-France. This direct competition with productions boasting much larger marketing budgets proved fatal: “It contributed to crushing our visibility even more.”

Another aggravating factor, perhaps the most revealing, was the attitude of the publisher. “Our publisher Ankama did not allocate a marketing budget; they didn’t really believe in it,” Étienne Jacquemain bitterly admits. This lack of marketing support from a major shareholder, directly involved in Blue Banshee’s capital, clearly weighed heavily on the game’s commercial failure. This revelation raises questions about the true nature of Ankama’s commitment to the project: was it merely a precautionary investment or a genuine desire to lead the studio to success?

The liquidation of Blue Banshee is unfortunately not an isolated case. The Breton studio is one of many victims of a deep crisis that has shaken the video game industry since 2023. This crisis, described as a “massacre” by Étienne Jacquemain, has its roots in the explosion and subsequent bursting of the post-Covid speculative bubble. Lockdowns led to a surge in gaming time and a massive influx of new players. This euphoria attracted considerable investment; studios hired en masse, and many projects were launched, anticipating sustained high demand.

The French video game industry has not been spared by this wave of layoffs and closures. The Parisian studio Don’t Nod, creator of the famous Life is Strange series and considered one of the jewels of French video games, announced in October 2024 a layoff plan targeting 69 jobs, or 20% of its total workforce. This decision follows disappointing sales of its latest productions, Jusant and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, which caused revenue to drop from €7 million in 2022 to just €5.4 million in 2023.

In Montpellier, the small studio Artisan Studios, which employed seventeen people, filed for judicial recovery on December 16, 2024, after several months without paying salaries. “It’s a descent into hell,” a employee told Mediapart. In April 2024, the Lyon-based studio Mi-Clos ceased operations after ten years, leaving about thirty employees jobless.

This widespread crisis has profoundly changed the behavior of publishers and investors. “Investors are very cautious about the video game market; many studios have closed in the past two years,” explains Étienne Jacquemain. The requirements for independent studios seeking to finance their projects have drastically tightened. Blue Banshee experienced this bitterly. After the release of Maliki, the studio was working on a second in-house project and had created “a demo, a prototype, a pitch that we presented to many publishers” in the United States, Great Britain, and Korea. The feedback was encouraging: “We got a lot of positive feedback from publishers who found it very beautiful, interesting, and original,” recalls Étienne Jacquemain.

But these compliments never translated into funding. “The problem is that the gaming industry is in a pretty deep crisis,” he explains. Financing conditions have radically changed: “Whereas four years ago, we could have gotten our project funded based on a paper concept and a few nice images, now publishers want us to go almost all the way to completion.”

This shift puts independent studios in an untenable position. “Publishers are asking studios like ours to create a playable demo with two-thirds of the development done, whereas two years ago, we could get the project funded. The prototype is no longer enough, but we don’t have the means,” laments Étienne Jacquemain. In other words, publishers now demand that studios bear most of the financial risk before considering any investment. “They basically want companies to bear all the risks. For us, it was too much financially,” he concludes.

A sudden fall: from payment cessation to liquidation

Faced with the commercial failure of Maliki and the inability to finance their second project, Blue Banshee quickly found itself in financial difficulty. “Things went downhill pretty quickly in a few months,” summarizes Étienne Jacquemain. The date of payment cessation was provisionally set to August 21, 2025 by the Lorient Commercial Court.

Less than two months later, on Friday, October 10, 2025, the Lorient Commercial Court pronounced the opening of judicial liquidation proceedings against Blue Banshee SAS. The judgment states that the company “is in a state of payment cessation and any recovery appears manifestly impossible.” This liquidation was requested by the studio itself, which had filed its application with the court. The legal representative of Blue Banshee and the employee representative were heard during the hearing on October 10, 2025.

At the time of liquidation, Blue Banshee had nine employees, most working remotely, spread across France and Belgium. The studio had employed up to twenty people at its peak. All these employees were laid off. “It’s very disappointing and very frustrating because we really built a great team, extremely competent and enthusiastic people; it’s always heartbreaking to have to end this,” confides Étienne Jacquemain.

The relationship between Blue Banshee and Ankama deserves special attention, as it illustrates the complexities and ambiguities of the relationships between independent studios and major publishers. Ankama was both a shareholder in Blue Banshee (as general manager alongside David Kubacki) and the exclusive publisher of the game Maliki: Poison of the Past. This dual role could have been a decisive advantage for the young studio.

Yet, this proximity clearly was not enough to save Blue Banshee. The lack of a marketing budget allocated by Ankama for the release of Maliki: Poison of the Past was explicitly pointed out by Étienne Jacquemain: “And our publisher Ankama did not allocate a marketing budget; they didn’t really believe in it.” This lack of support suggests that Ankama may not have had sufficient confidence in the commercial potential of the title, or that it preferred to focus its resources on other projects deemed more strategic.

It is important to note that “this has no impact on the other shareholders (the SARL Playerone and the SAS Ankama),” as Étienne Jacquemain clarified during the liquidation announcement. The legal structure of Blue Banshee, as a simplified joint-stock company (SAS), limits the liability of shareholders to the amount of their contributions. Ankama and Playerone are therefore not required to repay the debts of the liquidated company beyond their €300,000 capital contribution.

This situation raises questions about the nature of Ankama’s involvement in Blue Banshee: was it a genuine strategic investment with a desire for success, or rather a precautionary stake, allowing Ankama to keep an eye on a project related to one of its intellectual properties (Maliki) while limiting its financial and marketing commitment?

Despite the pain of this failure, Étienne Jacquemain tries to maintain perspective. “We remain very proud of the project,” he states in Ouest-France. He emphasizes the work accomplished: “It was a three-year adventure; we had to structure the team, launch the project, a lot of difficult work that ends in a fizzle… It’s very disappointing and very frustrating.”

But he also places the liquidation of Blue Banshee in the broader context of the sectoral crisis: “Unfortunately, we are not the only ones this is happening to; it’s not a very exceptional situation in the industry at the moment.” This lucidity does not erase the bitterness. “It’s quite complicated; you have to apply in industries that are looking towards serious gaming, gamification, or game design, where there are the most opportunities. For artists, it’s also a bit complicated,” he explains, discussing the prospects for his team.

As for the co-founder’s personal future, he remains open: “The option for me is to find a creative job in the industry. And if opportunities arise to start a studio again, why not? But I don’t want to do the same thing twice.”

Despite the judicial liquidation of Blue Banshee, Maliki: Poison of the Past remains available for purchase on Steam, the Nintendo eShop, and the Ankama Launcher. This may seem surprising at first glance, but it is explained by the very nature of the game. Unlike many modern games requiring online servers to function, Maliki: Poison of the Past is a complete solo experience that does not depend on any server to be played. This technical architecture ensures that players who purchase the game today will be able to play it indefinitely, without the risk of their purchase becoming unusable due to the shutdown of online servers.

No corrective updates, bug patches, or improvements are to be expected. The game remains frozen in its current version. For players, this means they are purchasing the game in its final state, as it was at the time of Blue Banshee’s liquidation. Any technical issues encountered will likely not be resolved, as there is no development team left to address them.

The Context: Ankama Seeks Its Path on Mobile

The year 2014 marks a turning point for Ankama. The Roubaix-based studio, riding high on the success of Dofus and the promising emergence of Wakfu (especially the animated series), closely observes the explosion of the mobile market. Smartphones become the new playgrounds of choice for gamers, and the revenue generated by mobile apps reaches dizzying heights.

However, Ankama’s initial forays into this market remain tentative. Dofus Pocket, released in 2009, followed by Dofus-Arena Pocket, did not achieve the expected success. Call of Cookie, developed by Devalley Entertainment and published by Ankama, only managed to secure an average rating of 3.8 stars on the Play Store—a disappointing score. The latter has since disappeared from app stores.

« Ankama has also already tried its hand at mobile gaming, but with little success », observers noted at the time. The French studio, accustomed to the complex mechanics and deep universes of its MMORPGs, struggled to adapt its creative vision to the constraints of mobile: smaller screens, shorter play sessions, and different economic models.

It is in this context that the idea of a strategic partnership was born. Rather than continuing alone in its attempts, Ankama decided to team up with a specialist in the field.

A Determining Managerial Transition

Before the agreement with Gumi, Ankama underwent a major transition period with the appointment of Olivier Comte as CEO in 2013. This appointment marked a turning point, as he was the first external leader of the company, which had previously been run solely by its founders. His relatively short tenure, from 2013 to 2015, was marked by particularly ambitious strategic choices.

The international expansion of Ankama’s IPs was one of the major axes of his leadership, with the opening of subsidiaries in several countries to develop the studio’s global presence. At the same time, granting the rights to the Wakfu series to Netflix for international distribution represented a historic first for the company, demonstrating a desire to open up to new media markets. This approach was accompanied by an active search for strategic partnerships to conquer new segments, particularly the booming mobile market.

Despite these promising initiatives, this transition period did not last, and Olivier Comte left his position in 2015. However, it was under his leadership that the partnership with Gumi was finalized, reflecting his vision of international openness and diversification that would durably mark Ankama’s DNA.

Meeting Gumi: A Promising Partnership

On March 11, 2014, the announcement was made: Ankama and Gumi Inc. signed a « strategic partnership focused on mobile games », which seemed promising on paper.

Gumi Inc., founded in 2007, had established itself as one of the undisputed leaders in mobile gaming in Asia. After launching the first Japanese mobile social gaming network « GREE », the company developed recognized expertise in mobile gaming on iOS and Android. Its original titles such as Yakuza Wars, Knight Wars, or Duel Summoner had made their mark on the Japanese market.

But it was above all with Brave Frontier that Gumi proved its mastery of the sector. This mobile RPG, developed by the studio Alim (acquired by Gumi in 2013), became a global phenomenon. With over 7 million users in Asia and North America, Brave Frontier generated colossal revenue and regularly ranked in the top 20 of the most profitable apps in Europe.

« Gumi’s expertise in mobile game development, combined with their in-depth knowledge of the Asian mobile market, makes them the ideal partner to continue our development », declared Olivier Comte, CEO of Ankama. For his part, Hironao Kunimitsu, CEO of Gumi Inc., rejoiced: « Ankama Games is capable of creating cohesive universes that appeal to a wide audience. We are proud and happy to partner with this talented studio ».

David Ng, CEO of gumi Asia Pte. Ltd.: « Our Singapore studio is excited about this opportunity to work with Ankama on their WAKFU license. gumi knows how to develop role-playing games while respecting the brand’s tone and style, and this expertise will undoubtedly make WAKFU Raiders an incredibly fun and immersive experience. »

Camille Chafer, Technical Director and co-founder of Ankama, stated: « After the global release of the WAKFU TV series on Netflix and the MMORPG on Steam, WAKFU Raiders is a new opportunity to introduce the WAKFU universe to more fans around the world. This mobile game is a new branch of the transmedia experience we continue to build with each of our releases. »

After raising 19 million dollars the previous year, Gumi wanted to expand internationally. The opening of an office in Paris symbolized this ambition, and the partnership with Ankama represented their first strategic agreement in France.

The first project of this collaboration was announced for 2014, already sparking much speculation. Would the Krosmoz universe finally find its way on mobile?

Development in the Shadows: The Ambition of a “Better Brave Frontier”

The first clues appeared in April 2015, when the name « Wakfu Raiders » briefly appeared in the listing of games at the Ankama Lineup. But the entry was quickly removed, fueling rumors. Some speculated about a Nintendo 3DS release, recalling Ankama’s previous DS projects.

It was in May 2015 that Gumi’s official pages revealed the project’s existence: Wakfu Raiders would indeed be a mobile game, developed for Android and iOS. The « Terms of Service » and « Privacy Policy » published by the Singaporean studio confirmed the presence of integrated payment methods, suggesting a free-to-play model. Subsequent data revealed that the game would be published under the name of the provider Mynet Games Inc. on the Google Play Store, a Gumi subsidiary at the time.

« According to initial information, it would be the studio located in Singapore that would be in charge of development jointly with Ankama Singapore », as stated in our article at the time. This international collaboration illustrated the scale of the project: Gumi brought its technical expertise and knowledge of Asian markets, while Ankama provided its creative universe and understanding of the European community.

A revealing interview with videographer Simon Tay during development provided a better understanding of the project’s ambitions. Cash Ong, Studio Head at Gumi Asia, and Kris Lee, Associate Producer, detailed their vision in the Japanese giant’s Singapore studios.

« When we were asked to build this game, it had to be a better Brave Frontier », explained Cash Ong. « We looked at Brave Frontier, what it offered, and all the features of our game were meant to solve the problems that Brave Frontier initially had. It’s actually a so-called better Frontier ».

This approach revealed the team’s mindset: rather than revolutionizing the genre, Wakfu Raiders positioned itself as a direct evolution of Brave Frontier, inheriting its mechanics while correcting its identified flaws. « We did the game from A to Z, from the artistic part, programming, and animations », Cash Ong specified, highlighting Gumi Asia’s total investment in the project.

Kris Lee detailed his role as coordinator: « I oversee production, coordinate things with Cash, and talk to people on the ground. I work with artists, programmers, and game designers to ensure everything is on time and that everything fits into the game without issues ». This organization demonstrated an international project involving multiple studios and time zones.

The Gumi Asia team did not just correct the flaws of Brave Frontier; they also innovated. « One of the main things people didn’t like about Brave Frontier was getting the same gacha characters », explained Cash Ong. « We changed how people upgrade their characters, the rarity of characters with Wakfu Raiders ».

Even more revolutionary, the team introduced a feature that would quickly become an industry standard: « We introduced something that is now a very popular feature in many upcoming games, even in Western games, which is the auto-play function ». This innovation, though commonplace today, represented a real breakthrough at the time.

« It’s the kind of thing you either love or hate, but it has been proven time and again that the majority of players seem to want this feature », justified Cash Ong. « The game, similar to Brave Frontier, still allows you to activate your ultimate special skills, but if you do nothing, the game continues to play by itself ».

Artistic Collaboration with Ankama: An Unprecedented Investment

The most exciting aspect of the project lay in the creative collaboration with Ankama. « For me, the main attraction of Wakfu Raiders compared to Brave Frontier is that we have the honor of working with Ankama, the owner of the Wakfu IP », enthused Kris Lee. « They have all these beautiful, interesting characters with a bit of weird dark humor inside ».

This admiration for the Ankama universe was evident in every statement from the developers. « I’m really impressed by Ankama’s graphics, and we can use them in Wakfu Raiders itself », Kris Lee continued. « This brings out the polish of the entire game to another level ».

The visual approach of Wakfu Raiders deliberately contrasted with that of Brave Frontier. « Brave Frontier plays a bit more with pixel art nostalgia, but for Wakfu Raiders, everything is in beautiful graphics, all hand-painted, hand-animated », explained Kris Lee. « This is what I feel is a very nice improvement over Frontier that we’re bringing to our players ».

This hybrid artistic direction proved technically ambitious. « We have 2D characters against a 3D environment », detailed Cash Ong. « The art style itself… Ankama did a fantastic job on the IP, they managed to create a unique art style… when you look at Wakfu, you know it’s distinctive ».

In addition to the polished graphics, the team also made the effort to implement professional English voice acting for the characters’ ultimates, a rarity on mobile at the time. This voice work, done for a few heroes by voice actress Rachael Messer (known for her roles in Black Clover, Goblin Slayer, and Borderlands 3), testified to the ambition of creating an experience with high standards. Even today, demo reels of this work still exist.

One of the most ambitious innovations concerned combo attacks. « We created a new system compared to Brave Frontier where, in normal Frontier, you attack in any order, but we also created this team attack system where the order of your attack during gameplay itself… creates an additional team attack based on the type of character combinations put together », detailed Kris Lee.

This mechanic, intended to « take gameplay to the next level », revealed the team’s technical ambition to offer something truly new. However, this additional complexity, added to the existing systems, risked creating an intimidating learning curve for new mobile players.

But the project fell behind schedule. Initially planned for 2014, then postponed, Wakfu Raiders was finally released in July 2015. These delays, common in the industry, perhaps already hid the first technical and creative difficulties linked to this ambitious fusion between two distinct artistic universes.

Release: Between Hopes and Early Signs of Mixed Reception

On July 23, 2015, Wakfu Raiders officially launched on iOS and Android stores in Europe. After more than a year of development, the public could finally discover what this Franco-Japanese collaboration had to offer.

The pitch was ambitious: « Dive into the World of Twelve to solve the mystery of the strange phenomena occurring in the dimension of Etatim », « As one of Yakusha’s subordinates, you must investigate the anomalies appearing everywhere in the world and discover why the gods of the Wakfu kingdom are losing their powers. » This alternative dimension allowed the developers to take some liberties with the established lore while retaining the essence of the Wakfu universe. To my knowledge, we have never seen this dimension again since Wakfu Raiders.

The narrative approach attempted to appeal to both newcomers and connoisseurs. « The story begins in the stands of a Brakmar arena, a group of adventurers suddenly arrives in the VIP box of the God Xelor », recounted the Otakia review. The scenario, inspired by the codes of lucid dreaming, placed the player in the shoes of a surviving Iop, forced to explore this dreamlike reality to find his companions.

Visually, the game made an impression and fulfilled the developers’ promises. « Graphically, it’s superb, well-animated », the review acknowledged. The characters from the Wakfu universe came to life with a rare quality of animation on mobile. Each hero had fluid and expressive animations, in the pure tradition of French animation, validating Kris Lee’s enthusiastic statements about the collaboration with Ankama.

The gameplay system fulfilled the stated ambition of improving Brave Frontier. The Gumi Asia team had indeed introduced notable innovations, starting with the auto-play system so touted by Cash Ong. « You have to watch for the best time to launch your skills », he had explained. « For Brave Frontier, if you do nothing, everything pauses ».

This feature, revolutionary for the time, immediately divided opinions. The automation allowed players to let their characters fight autonomously while retaining the option to intervene occasionally to trigger special skills. An approach that appealed to busy mobile players but confused Ankama fans accustomed to total control.

The team also emphasized positional strategy, as Cash Ong had promised: « Where you place your units in your group selection, putting them in front, in the middle, or behind, all have different bonuses ». This tactical depth, coupled with the individualized playstyles of each character, demonstrated the desire to enrich the experience compared to the Brave Frontier model.

Each world was divided into 8 dungeons, each composed of three rooms with a final boss. This structure, proven in other titles of the genre, offered a clear progression rhythm and short-term objectives, respecting the established codes of mobile.

However, from the first tests, flaws appeared. The tutorial, though « didactic », failed to mask the limitations of the gameplay. « The interaction is very limited, the characters attack on their own, you just have to launch their special moves when their gauge is full », pointed out Otakia. « Unlike other smartphone games already released (Dofus Battle 1 and Dofus Battle 2), we really feel that the impact of our actions is very limited », lamented the review. This automated approach, characteristic of mobile, immediately divided the community. Ankama fans, accustomed to complex mechanics and strategic freedom, felt disappointed.

The critical reception revealed a fundamental paradox: Wakfu Raiders charmed with its aesthetics but disappointed with its gameplay. The auto-combat system, a cornerstone of the game and Cash Ong’s pride, crystallized the criticism. Characters entered battle and fought autonomously, with the player only occasionally activating special skills. « Having the auto-combat option for background farming makes the combat gameplay much less significant in the experience », observed MMOHuts.

MMOHuts noted that « the game isn’t that hard to understand because there have been many similar popular games on the mobile market that use the same engine ». This familiarity, far from being an asset, became a handicap. In a market saturated with mobile RPGs with similar mechanics, Wakfu Raiders struggled to stand out beyond its graphics, despite the improvements highlighted by the development team. This underscored the ambiguity of the project: was it a real Ankama game or just a cosmetic overlay on generic mechanics?

Progression also suffered from this standardization. The difficulty level system (Normal, Elite, Expert) followed the established codes of the genre. The greater rewards of higher levels motivated replayability but at the cost of assumed repetitiveness that contradicted the stated ambition of « next-level gameplay ».

Paradoxically, it was on the narrative aspect that the game disappointed the most. « The initial story is full of promise, but the scenario completely falls by the wayside once you start playing », deplored Otakia. The richness of the Wakfu universe, the project’s main asset according to Kris Lee, diluted into a succession of dungeons without real narrative coherence, wasting the « weird dark humor » so appreciated by the development team.

This frustration particularly affected the longtime fans. The Ankama community, attached to the depth of lore and the complexity of mechanics, felt disappointed by this simplified approach and quickly abandoned the game. MMOHuts acknowledged that « seeing the Wakfu and Dofus characters almost life-sized and up close » was a real asset.

At Krozmotion, we tested the game for several weeks after its release, providing some of the first critical feedback on the project. Our experience perfectly reflected this community division that characterized the game’s reception. The game remained generally enjoyable, and we have good memories of the sessions played. Ankama’s artistic direction shone through in every animation, offering a remarkable visual spectacle for the time.

However, several elements quickly limited our engagement. The repetitiveness of combat and the lack of narrative depth—or at least, a scenario poorly aligned with the usual standards of the Krosmoz universe—created growing frustration over hours of play. This disconnect between Ankama’s rich universe and its simplified mobile transposition likely explains why so many longtime fans expressed their disappointment, despite the artistic beauty touted by the development team.

Finally, the external communication around the game clearly lacked consistency and scope. Exchanges with Ankama’s historical audience were limited to a few articles on official sites and sporadic posts on social media. In reality, the main source of information for players remained to download the game and check updates directly in-game. Such a minimalist communication approach suggests that the game was not primarily targeting Ankama universe loyalists, especially given its simplified mechanics, which were poorly suited to the expectations of traditional fans.

Worse still, the absence of targeted advertising campaigns, especially on mobile—a crucial channel for reaching a wider and more suitable audience for this type of game—worsened the situation. This lack of dialogue with the existing community not only disappointed the expectations of longtime players but also widened the gap between the game’s promise and its reception, contributing to its lack of visibility and adoption. A more aggressive and better-adapted communication strategy would undoubtedly have allowed for a better connection between the product and its potential audience.

The inherent difficulty of simultaneously satisfying two audiences with diametrically opposed expectations. Longtime Ankama fans legitimately expected a rich, complex experience that respected the studio’s tactical identity. Conversely, the mobile audience naturally prioritized immediate accessibility, ease of use, and quick gratification. This fundamental tension, poorly resolved by the development team despite its technical innovations, resulted in a flawed hybrid product that fully satisfied neither of the two target audiences.

A Mixed Legacy

The performance of Wakfu Raiders reflected a mixed success. The game reached over 500,000 downloads on Android according to available data, a respectable figure but insufficient for a project with such high ambitions. For comparison, Brave Frontier had managed to attract over 7 million users, setting the standard that Cash Ong and his team hoped to surpass.

The critical reception revealed notable differences between ecosystems. Released on iOS, the game received an average rating of 4.0 stars based on 257 reviews, compared to 3.84 stars on Android with over 18,000 ratings. This difference suggested that the iOS user base, though smaller, was more receptive to the project.

Analysis of the iOS rating distribution revealed a less marked polarization than on Android. On the App Store, 47.5% of reviews gave the game 5 stars, while only 15.2% gave it 1 star. This more balanced distribution contrasted with the sharper division observed on the Google Play Store, where extreme reviews dominated over moderate ones.

Despite an acceptable launch, Wakfu Raiders struggled to find its cruising speed. Updates followed one after another, attempting to enrich the experience: guild system, level 4 and 5 equipment, new heroes. These additions, typical of the genre, demonstrated the developers’ desire to retain their audience and address initial criticisms, notably by exploiting the crafting system mentioned by Cash Ong during development interviews.

Yet, warning signs gradually accumulated. The generated revenue did not meet Gumi’s expectations, accustomed to global successes like Brave Frontier. The free-to-play economic model, based on in-app purchases of gems and heroes, failed to create the engagement necessary for the profitability of a modern mobile game, despite the promised improvements to the traditional gacha system.

Several factors converged to explain this worrying stagnation. The fierce competition in the mobile market was the first obstacle: in 2015-2016, collectible RPGs multiplied, each trying to replicate the success of Brave Frontier or Puzzle & Dragons. In this competitive jungle, Wakfu Raiders lacked major differentiating elements beyond its artistic direction.

Finally, operational difficulties at Gumi began to be acutely felt. The Japanese studio, in the midst of international expansion, multiplied projects and perhaps diluted its human and financial resources. Managing a mobile game required constant attention: regular events, balancing mechanics, and active community communication. This workload, underestimated at the project’s outset, quickly weighed down the profitability of a title with limited revenue.

The period from January to April 2016 likely marked the time when internal discussions intensified dramatically. On Gumi’s side, financial pressure increased: maintaining global servers and a dedicated team for a barely profitable game became difficult to justify to shareholders. On Ankama’s side, the project’s relative failure fundamentally questioned the studio’s mobile strategy and the effectiveness of international partnerships.

The Painful Announcement

On April 26, 2016, less than 10 months after launch, the axe fell, ending the adventure. Gumi Inc. published a statement that sounded like an admission of failure:

« Greetings Raiders, First of all, thank you for the support you have given to our beloved game, Wakfu Raiders. We have sincerely appreciated that players, old and new, joined us in this adventure in the universe of Etatim […] After several internal discussions, we have unfortunately come to the decision to close Wakfu Raiders, due to operational constraints within the company. »

This diplomatic wording poorly masked the brutal economic reality underlying this decision. The « operational constraints » mentioned corresponded to the simple impossibility of maintaining a loss-making project. In the mobile industry, the rule is ruthless: a title must quickly reach several million users to generate the revenue necessary for its sustainability.

This abrupt closure tragically contradicted the ambitions expressed by Cash Ong and Kris Lee during development. The promised « better Brave Frontier », with its technical innovations and exceptional artistic direction, did not withstand the ruthless realities of the mobile market. The considerable investment by Gumi Asia, which had developed the game « from A to Z », evaporated in a few official lines.

The announcement detailed a closure schedule spread over several months, reflecting a procedure honed by the industry: to soften this bitter pill, the developers generously activated a « end-of-service festivities » mode that turned the final months into a farewell party. Dungeons saw their energy costs reduced, drop rates were significantly improved, massive discounts were applied to all purchases, and all premium content was unlocked for free.

The community’s reaction oscillated between legitimate anger and bitter resignation. Players who had been won over by the project felt deeply abandoned, having invested time and sometimes money into an experience abruptly cut short. On specialized forums, messages of disappointment multiplied, testifying to the paradoxical attachment the game had managed to create despite its glaring flaws.

The development team’s final words resonated with palpable bitterness: « From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for staying with us. We also want to thank Ankama for allowing us to be creative with their Wakfu universe. » This polite mutual recognition did not mask the bitter failure of the Franco-Japanese partnership, nor the likely bitterness of Cash Ong and Kris Lee in seeing their innovations and hard work reduced to nothing.

The Legacy of a Failure

Today, nearly ten years after its definitive closure, Wakfu Raiders leaves only scattered digital traces. The frozen data of the Google Play Store silently testifies to this aborted adventure: growth at 0%.

These digital vestiges tell a story that official statements dared not admit at the time. A project that no longer generated any downloads, any ratings, any signs of life for years. Yet, the thousands of ratings preserved documented the existence of a real and engaged community, which had taken the time to rate and comment on their experience.

As for the wish for a return, there is sporadic nostalgia among some fans. On Dofus/Ankama forums and Reddit threads, players sometimes suggest bringing back Wakfu Raiders as an accessible mode for subscribers, linking it to Ankama’s existing ecosystem. These voices regret its closure and hope for a re-release, especially with the enduring success of the Wakfu universe through the anime or games. However, this is not a massive movement; the community seems more focused on current titles like Dofus or the Wakfu MMORPG.

Is a return possible? Unlikely. Tot recently reminded in a post on X that the game was developed by Gumi and not by Ankama, and that its operation was not their responsibility. Since 2016, no official announcement from Gumi or Ankama has mentioned a relaunch, with the partnership limited to this single project.

A revival would require renegotiating the license, technical updates for modern mobiles, and a substantial investment, with no guarantee of success in a market saturated with gacha RPGs. Recent research shows no rumors or plans in this direction.

Post-Wakfu Raiders: Lessons Partially Learned?

The bitter failure of Wakfu Raiders paradoxically did not discourage Ankama from pursuing its mobile ambitions but significantly influenced the studio’s strategic approach. The teams clearly learned the hard lessons from this experience to develop a new generation of mobile projects: Tactile Wars, King Tongue, and especially Dofus Touch. The latter title, a direct and faithful adaptation of Dofus for tablets, achieved notable success by offering an experience authentically respectful of the original rather than a simplified and denatured transposition.

Yet, recent history shows that Ankama has not fully internalized all the lessons from Wakfu Raiders. Waven, the new mobile and cross-platform game launched in 2023, struggles to find its formula and echoes the difficulties encountered by its predecessor. As attested by our X thread from April 2025, based on a live session with Tot and XyaLe, Ankama admitted major problems: lack of depth, non-existent social aspects, frustrating gacha, poor optimization, and poorly received narration.

The numbers speak for themselves: Waven generates only 1,000 euros per month, a derisory amount that doesn’t even cover server costs. This critical situation led Ankama to announce an ambitious overhaul (reboot to version 1.0 planned for September 2025), with simplified mechanics, new modes (Rogue Like, Boss Fight), and more regular communication.

An August 2025 update confirmed progress but emphasized that « simplifying a game is not simple », and invited player feedback. Reviews described engaging combat but a game perceived as « empty » or « soulless gacha », with marked drops in engagement. Ankama persists with this hard reset, erasing all player progress, but Waven cruelly illustrates that Ankama’s challenges in innovating while preserving the essence of its universes remain, as they did with Wakfu Raiders before.

For Gumi, the European adventure continued with other partnerships, but the Japanese firm gradually refocused its efforts on its traditional Asian markets, where its cultural understanding remained stronger. The Wakfu Raiders experience likely weighed significantly in this strategic reorientation, demonstrating the limits of international collaborations when creative visions and target audiences do not perfectly align. It cruelly reminds us that in the video game industry, creative genius and the goodwill of teams are not always enough to guarantee success. Sometimes, the best artistic intentions brutally collide with the inflexible imperatives of the market, and the most beautiful creations inevitably sink into collective oblivion. The current difficulties of Waven prove that these lessons remain of troubling relevance.

For the curious wishing to discover what Wakfu Raiders actually looked like in action, a few precious videos remain in the depths of the web. The Smysse TV channel, though inactive today, still offers 9 episodes of gameplay, one per game zone, providing a glimpse of this now inaccessible experience.

This article was written from archives and testimonies collected on the web. If you lived through this era and wish to share your memories, feel free to do so in the comments or on our social networks. Also, don’t hesitate to give us your opinion on this type of retrospective article.

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