After a year of activity on the Roblox platform, pulling in nearly one billion visits and earning over 2.5 million likes and favorites, the developers of Anime Fighters Simulator (AFS) have announced the beginning of its end. On Sept. 14, 2022, Roblox developer daireb announced on Twitter and Discord that development for AFS has stopped and that, while the experience would remain open, regular updates would no longer be released. Though a specific reason for this change hasn't been announced, it's been labeled as an "internal issue".
In his public statement, daireb mentions that while he personally would like to continue updating AFS, the decision to stop updates was out of his control and stemmed from "internal issues with the team" that made continuing the updates impossible. The full statement is as follows:
It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that Anime Fighters won't be receiving regular updates from now on. This is due to internal issues within the team and I'm afraid it's totally out of my control. I'd like to continue updating, but unfortunately that's not possible. There may be updates at some point in the future, but they won't be coming [as] regularly as before. I want to thank you all for the support over the lifetime of AFS. You've been a great community (most of the time) and I'll look forward to seeing you all on future games.
In another statement, posted by jaymlIks on Twitter, it seems as though daireb reached out to his development team with a longer message relaying the news. In this statement, daireb thanks the players, testers, staff, administrators, and other managers on his team that worked to create AFS and make it the success that it was able to become.
Since the release of this news, hundreds of players have voiced their feelings regarding the situation on Twitter, with some users criticizing daireb for being a poor manager and team member, and others praising him for his openness.
"Daireb, I still haven't managed to be the strongest in Anime Fighters, but I promise that in your next games I will be the strongest," said user Pietro Jibsqi. "I'm sorry for what's happening in Anime Fighters, [it] is and will always be my favorite game."
"Thanks for everything daireb," said another user, @D4rksssOfficial. "[I'm] still kinda sad that I put so much Robux into AFS [just] for it to end so soon, but it was still a great experience nonetheless; for sure one of the best games I've played on Roblox. Good luck on your next projects!"
As mentioned above, not everyone was as forgiving to daireb, with user @TheSeamanNFT saying "What you mean is you’ve stopped getting as much money as before due to lazy development and not listening to your player base, and have decided to make a new game," followed by user @BigDripBigSauce reiterating this comment, saying "You all got the money you wanted and that’s that. Then moved on. Realized you guys couldn’t milk it anymore so just said 'hey what’s next?' Definitely not playing anything ever related to you guys again."
Just one day before announcing the halt of AFS updates, daireb quote tweeted a video on Twitter of a Robloxian riding a hoverboard, adding the caption "New game soon?", which has led many players to assume that daireb is simply moving away from AFS to grow other experiences, not because of any alleged "internal issues". Though this rumor is spreading around the Roblox community rather quickly, it's unlikely that daireb will ever make a comment on the claims.
Looking to read up on some more Roblox news? Check out our recent articles on Players are losing access to certain Roblox experiences as country-specific laws are tightened or Roblox’s ESBR rating has been changed from E10+ to Teen – Roblox receives new T rating here on Pro Game Guides.
When Grace isn't writing about video games, she's playing them, and probably playing too many at once. Since she was a kid, video games and writing have been her two biggest passions, so getting to combine them for a job has been a dream come true! She's your go-to person for all-things Roblox at PGG, and she's happy to help in whatever way she can!