Review / We review BTS World mobile game: K-pop ARMYs will love it; everyone else … not so much
With a soundtrack featuring Charli XCX, Zara Larsson and Juice Wrld, does the K-pop boy band’s mobile video game represent the future for music stars worldwide?
My phone rings and without thinking, I pick up. The flawless faces of BTS pop up via video call, my shocked, post-shower self visible in the smaller screen in the corner. The members of the world’s biggest boy band continue to chat to me, while I scramble to put on some clothes, despite knowing this is all just a game.
BTS is already on the way to worldwide domination of our entire mediasphere, so it was no surprise when Big Hit Entertainment announced the launch of mobile game, BTS World, developed by Netmarble (CEO Bang Joon-hyuk is cousin to Big Hit founder and CEO Bang Si-hyuk).
Rolled out in more than 249 markets worldwide, the title hit number one in Apple’s App Store charts in 25 countries, after being released on June 26. Meanwhile the accompanying BTS World: Original Soundtrack topped Billboard’s World Albums chart, and saw the group team up with the likes of Charli XCX, Zara Larsson and Juice Wrld.
Now, more than two months later, interest appears to be dying down as levels become harder and harder to clear. As the dust settles on an unprecedented multimedia phenomenon, we take a closer look and ask: are games the new future for pop stars the world over?
The story
The game sees the player take on the role of BTS’ manager, charged with navigating the band into its career-making deal with Big Hit, over two different gaming modes. Big Hit has put a lot of thought into the game’s main storyline, BTS Story – as well as the individual storylines in Another Story that focus on what each member would have done, had they not become K-pop stars.
For example: At the outset Jungkook tries to bring new life into the school’s taekwondo club, hapless city boy V returns to the countryside, Jimin is juggling his grandmother’s rice cake shop and dance, RM is a genius college student/detective, and Mr “Worldwide Handsome” Jin is slogging it out in a hotel.
In BTS Story, you’re sent back to 2012 before the band debuted, and you begin the process of convincing each member to sign with Big Hit. There’s some serious nostalgia for ARMYs who have been there since the beginning – it was cute seeing the boys in their debut No More Dream outfits, albeit with better hair.