When Disney Mirrors came out, I was treated very cruelly. I think it was the most betrayed I've ever felt by a game, which, to be fair, is partly up to me for making me hope for a mobile game made by Kabam in 2022. . Its multifaceted take on Disney heroes and villains gave us a rich world to explore and character designs that felt instantly iconic. The marketing made it look like a sprawling RPG with an in-depth story about the Dark Mirror, The Fractured, and Guardians of the Mirrorverse. McFarlane Toys even created an entire line of action figures for it.
It looked like it was going to be a great game, but then all we got was the same old overheated gacha game, full of loot systems, dozens of different currencies, and unsolvable games, and tons of ads. which sometimes happened. Hard to tell where the real games were. Mirrorverse was so close to not being the trash of mobile gaming, but it ended up being held back by everything that gives mobile its terrible reputation.
I stopped playing Mirrorverse shortly after it came out, but finally got back into it this summer during what might be called a mental health crisis. I found it to be pretty much the same game, albeit with a few years of added content and characters, which was always my favorite thing about the game. I learned a bit about the recent hardships at Kabam, which has gone through two major waves of layoffs in the last two years that have effectively reduced the Mirrorverse team to a skeleton crew. Development slowed, but continued, with new characters and story chapters added infrequently throughout the year.
On September 17, just before the release of the newest character, Cinderella, Kabam announced on the Discord community server that it was time to shut down the Mirrorverse. All in-app purchases have been disabled immediately and the servers are scheduled to go offline on December 16, 2024.
I only returned to the Mirrorverse in July, and my total financial investment in the game, while still high enough that I'm embarrassed to reveal it, pales in comparison to many players who have been in the Mirrorverse since day one. To realize that the writing is gone forever, even though the writing has been on the wall for a while, is hard to accept. You can see it in the reactions of people on Discord as they go through the grieving process.
The #feedback and suggestions channel is full of calls to sell the game to another studio or release the files so the community can remake the game on their own. Players are hoping for spinoffs, sequels, or reboots that never happen, and community admins don't have the heart to tell them that's the case. The game ends in December and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
It's the reality of live service gaming that's especially painful on mobile. Whether you've dedicated time, money, or both, it's hard to accept that all that investment is about to be wiped out and you'll have nothing to show for it. There are no short-term goals in such games. In such a situation there is no payback, just a hollow “thank you” and a lingering feeling of being cheated.
With ten weeks left in the fork, it's fascinating to see where the game is today. To Kabam's credit, it handles the shutdown in the kindest way possible by turning the game from a free-to-play microtransaction nightmare into something that actually rewards you for your time.
All in-app purchases have been removed and replaced with a new currency called Mirror Fragments, which you can earn tens of thousands by logging in and completing challenges. These pieces can be spent on a variety of advancement materials that the game offers, from artifacts and gems to scrolls, signatures, books, and gold. You can also spend chunks to buy special five-star guardians from a pool that rotates once a week. No more loot boxes, no more pay-to-win, just a clear progression path that's fun and rewarding.
It's like Kabam put a few thousand dollars into everyone's account and told them to go crazy, but even better, because you can still play the game and earn your progress. The difference now is that progress is actually measurable over days and weeks, not months and years.
Ironically, it took a while for Mirrorverse to finally turn into a great game, and I can't help but wonder if it would have been more successful if it had been more like that from the start. I don't pretend to know the economics of making or monetizing a mobile game, but I do know that this version of the Mirrorverse is one I look forward to any day before I'm punished for missing a game.
I'll join the Capium train and say that I hope this isn't the end for the Mirrorverse. The world of the Mirrorverse and its interpretation of Disney characters is incredible, and it would be a waste to throw it all away now. There's already a full novel and a prequel manga that came out earlier this year, so while I don't know if there's an audience for it, it's kind of cool to see the story continue. Mirrorverse deserved better than this game, so I don't blame people who aren't ready to let it go.
