As players know, the success of most games depends on more than just their excellent quality, interesting mechanics, and beautiful art. There is another crucial element: a miracle. Not all outstanding games get discovered and succeed, but every game requires the blood, sweat, and tears of its development team. Today, we will talk about one of the unfortunate ones swallowed by the jungle of the gaming industry.

With its anime art style, werewolf game mechanics, and free-to-play model, it sounds like an anime girl version of Among Us, doesn't it? Isn't that interesting? This game, called "iLLANG," is a social deduction game where villagers cooperate to identify the werewolves. The game supports 6 to 20 players. However, despite its promising premise, the game was unable to continue operations and shut down, offering refunds only one month after launch.

“The servers could not be paid, and we thought that if we could somehow pay the June debt, that 71 million won would be closer to 100 million won, plus another 20 million won for advertising or marketing that has not been settled, and four major insurance premiums for unpaid wages and severance pay. Up to 825 million won in investments from major shareholders in January and February 2024,” said CEO and Studio Head, Koji Tamura.

In fact, Challengers Games, the developer of iLLANG, had other profitable games to fund iLLANG's development, but it wasn't enough to cover the deepening pit. The costs of voice acting and art teams, server fees, shareholder pressure, and internet criticism created an insurmountable series of obstacles. The team, which initially had 70 members, gradually dwindled to a small group of 20.

Finally, on June 19, CEO and Studio Head Koji Tamura posted a letter on the official website, detailing the journey of the team from its inception to their eventual surrender and disbandment.