Infold Games’ Love and Deepspace is not your standard romance mobile game, and that is exactly the point.
At this year’s Game Developers Conference, producer Lizi shared how the team built the sci-fi otome hit around one big idea: romance does not only happen in confession scenes or pretty CGs. Sometimes it happens when you fight monsters together. Sometimes it happens when a character checks in on your day.
Since launching in 2024, the free-to-play mobile title has become a global monster, with over 80 million users and lifetime revenue reportedly nearing US$1 billion by early 2026. For a genre once seen as niche, that is gila-level mainstream impact.
For SEA players, especially those in Malaysia who are used to mobile-first gaming, Love and Deepspace is interesting because it shows how far romance games can go when treated like a premium production instead of a small side genre.
The team nearly did not make it
According to Lizi, the project had a rough development journey. She has worked on Love and Deepspace for six years, and before release, the team’s mood was apparently so tense that their annual wish was basically for everyone to survive the process.
That pressure came partly from the game’s unusual pitch. Otome games traditionally focus on story, character art and emotional routes. Love and Deepspace wanted to go bigger: 3D characters, real-time interaction, near-future sci-fi, daily companionship systems and full action combat.
Infold’s earlier title Love and Producer — known in English as Mr Love: Queen’s Choice — helped push otome games into the Chinese mainstream back in 2017. With Love and Deepspace, the question became: how do you convince players who do not normally touch otome games to give romance a try?
Their answer was to make the romance feel more direct, more interactive and more “present” in daily play.
Why is there combat in my romance game?
The most surprising part is still the combat. Love and Deepspace lets players become a Deepspace Hunter, using powers and weapons while fighting alien enemies alongside a chosen male lead.
Lizi described the idea as “Combat is Romance.” The thinking is simple but quite smart: fighting together creates trust. Instead of making the heroine feel passive, the game frames the relationship as two people supporting each other equally.
This was not immediately accepted. When the game was first shown in 2020, many otome fans pushed back against the action direction. After launch, however, players warmed up to it once the emotional logic landed properly.
The team also had to solve practical problems. The male leads needed to look good enough to carry the fantasy, so Infold pushed the character models far beyond typical mobile expectations, with each protagonist model reportedly using 100,000 to 200,000 polygons and over 500 bones.
The combat presentation was also reworked. Because the game’s romantic interactions use portrait mode for that close, face-to-face feeling, the team initially tried portrait combat too. But action gameplay needs wider visibility, so they made the bold call to switch into landscape mode during fights. Risky, but it became part of the game’s identity.
Daily life is the other half of the fantasy
Love and Deepspace is not only about dramatic battles. The game also leans hard into slice-of-life companionship.
Players can exercise, study, check in, go on dates, take photos, play claw machines and interact through systems like diaries, reminders and even period tracking. On paper, that sounds unusual for a romance game. In practice, it is part of the fantasy: the male lead feels involved in the player’s routine, not just the main story.
The Outing features also give each character different behaviour. Xavier, Zayne, Rafayel, Sylus and Caleb are designed to react differently based on personality, so a claw machine date or photo session does not feel copy-pasted.
There are also Heart-to-Heart and Companionship systems meant to reduce loneliness, plus AR features and VR exploration to make the characters feel closer to the real world. The game’s second anniversary update added a Home System, giving players a personal space to invite male leads into.
For Malaysian and SEA fans, this explains why Love and Deepspace has cut through so strongly. It is mobile-friendly, polished, emotional, and built for players who want more than just static romance scenes. Whether you are here for the husbandos, the sci-fi action or the daily comfort, Infold clearly understands one thing: modern otome fans want presence, not just pictures.
Source: Automaton Media