For anyone who is interested in cute fashion-based games, Infinity Nikki might be a game you’re familiar with. For those not in the know, Infinity Nikki is a fairly new free-to-play action-adventure game centered around dress up mechanics developed and published by InFold Games in December of 2024. It was highly accepted by fans the day of release, especially with how different the game was from any other in the genre.
Infinity Nikki is the first open-world style in the Nikki series, which a lot of veteran players found intriguing. The graphics were highly praised in trailers and showcases as you could see the love put into the game.
Upon launch, reviews were extremely positive, with many players praising the cozy and relaxing gameplay along with the well thought-out story. During personal play-experience, the game is generally easy to navigate and isn’t very stressful. It is rather generous with the currency needed to participate in the game’s gacha for outfit pieces as opposed to other gacha-related games.
Many players, however, also had criticisms for the game post-launch. Like many free-to-play games, Infinity Nikki has micro-transactions that some consumers thought were partially predatory. Recently, the major 1.5 update has been released that has severely upped these concerns.
Alleged fictitious pricing–mainly a $70 bathtub item that came with the recent release which has been discounted to $10–has caused outrage among newer players. People have expressed concerns about predatory pricing that have been seemingly ignored. Along with outrageous prices for items, InFold Games has chosen to retcon their entire beginning story; the reason the majority of players joined the game to begin with and the main cause for the big drama blow up. This decision was made to incorporate multiplayer gameplay into the canon game; however, with this decision came with tons of bugs and issues.
Players reported a new kind of currency that came with the recently released multiplayer area: Sea of Stars being taken away due to a game bug that allowed players to collect double the amount daily. This put many players into the negatives, but have been ignored by customer service when they reached out about the issue.
Recent developer responses have dodged issues that players have begged them to address, with the general consensus from players being that InFold has no care for the audience of their game. This, along with complete radio silence, has only heightened these feelings in consumers.
With a complete ret-con of the story, predatory pricing, unfixed bugs, and horrible developer responses, many players have decided to boycott the game altogether. Many have resorted to calling it a cheap cash grab made to exploit players searching for a comfortable easy gameplay experience.
Infinity Nikki was praised highly as an industry changer for the dress-up genre; Now however, it seems as if the game has spelled out its own downfall and it is unclear if it can come back from such a big loss.
