Destiny Child returns in 2027 with a new collection RPG and 500 characters

In late October, Destiny Child turned ten. And Com2uS used the date to announce Destiny Child: Assembly, a new idle RPG developed by TIKITAKA STUDIO that will arrive worldwide in the first half of 2027.

The announcement comes exactly three years after the original game shut down. Destiny Child turned off its servers in Korea, Japan, and the international version on September 21, 2023, and since then many players have felt that no other title had offered such a distinctive art style again.

The new project puts its biggest asset front and center: more than 500 unique characters drawn by Kim Hyung-tae and other artists. The same promise that made the 2016 game great, though now with an idle RPG model designed to keep players hooked long-term.

The return of an art style that defined an era

Kim Hyung-tae is no ordinary name in the Korean industry. He started in the 90s drawing for an RPG that never came out, moved through Softmax with Magna Carta and The War of Genesis 3, and at NCsoft became the art director of Blade & Soul, the game that made him famous across Asia.

His style was always unmistakable: bodies with pronounced curves, shiny skin, tight clothing, and a mix of Western anatomy with Asian facial features. In China, pirated ads for Blade & Soul gave rise to the famous "oily big sister" meme that still follows the artist.

That same signature defined Destiny Child from its Korean launch in October 2016. The game brought Kim Hyung-tae's drawings to mobile with Live2D, vertical characters, and even a button to pixelate the girls if you were playing on the subway. An absurd solution, but very aware of what it was offering.

The game won fans over with its art, though it was never a big business. In 2021 and 2022, its global revenue fell from 73.6 to 35.8 million yuan, and the 2023 shutdown confirmed that aesthetics alone were not enough to sustain it.

A new model for an old formula

With Destiny Child: Assembly, Com2uS is betting on an idle RPG, a genre with a low barrier to entry and good retention. The idea is clear: take the 500 characters already created and the visual style that already has a fan base, and put them into a more profitable format.

That said, Kim Hyung-tae is no longer at the helm. Since November 2024, the IP belongs to Com2uS and Shift Up only participates as a supervisor. The artist who defined the look of the original game is now CEO of Shift Up, and his time is split between Stellar Blade, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, and running a company of more than 400 people.

The teaser uses the "flower of the underworld," the element that in the original story could revive the dead. Com2uS's message is not subtle at all: they want the franchise to come back to life.

The question that remains is whether the new game will offer something more than familiar faces. Destiny Child: Assembly will no longer be that title you logged into daily to adjust formations, raise affinity with your characters, and get lost in the hot springs. It will be something else, with the same art as always and a different studio behind it.