Why Do Infinity Nikki’s Updates Always Come With Bugs?

Liking Infinity Nikki was maybe my happiest accident. I agreed to cover the game here when it came out just for something to do, fell in love with the world and its mechanics, and wound up diving face-first into Genshin Impact after I finished all the quests because I was so hungry for more games like it. I’ve been among the first to experience Infinity Nikki, and it’s been fascinating to watch a game like it inch its way to the top next to the big names in gacha gaming.

My colleague had almost only good things to say about the 1.5 update when she played it pre-launch, while the further previews I’d seen on social media were beautiful, and I was so eager to have another wave of fresh content to dive into when the update dropped on the evening April 28. Doing my Nikki dailies is part of my morning routine, but when I sat down the next morning to dive into the new content before it got patched, it was almost like Infold wanted me to play it immediately, yet also didn’t want me to play it at all.

Since the catastrophic launch, Infold has fixed “nearly 100 issues” and handed out a generous apology gift to all players, but it’s not their first compensatory apology after an update.

Forcing The New Story Undermined Its Impact

The second you load into the 1.5 update (assuming you even could – this update seems to have borked the whole game for some players, which was interesting considering it showcased a new multiplayer mode without a good chunk of its players), you’re dropped directly into the new, lore-heavy story. Before you’ve so much as blinked, Nikki is holding hands with The Seer and running through a collapsing universe of stars in a gameplay section that feels like tutorial 2.0. Who is The Seer? I don’t know yet, but as we fled together, she taught me all about jumping over obstacles and how to open my sketchbook to craft a piece of clothing like it was my first time playing.

From what I understand, this is the revamped introduction to the game for new players as Infinity Nikki branches onto Steam, but as someone who’s been playing since the closed beta back in October and just wanted to do some quick tasks before work, I was annoyed. It may have been less irksome if I’d opted into it when I was ready to sit down for a while and pick up the new story content, but just trying to spend Vital Energy and catch a few bugs really quick is not at all the same thing as being shoved into an elaborately redundant tutorial.

I could have skipped the story content if I wanted to speed things along, but if this is the new start of the game’s universe and lore, I knew I probably shouldn’t.

Don’t get me wrong – the new content is beautiful. I am excited to dive into the thick of it all, but instead of seeing all the 1.5 additions at my own pace, it was all there all at once: “Hurry up, pay attention, this is important.” Infold, please, I was having my first coffee, I can’t handle all of this at 8am while I’m half-awake.

Players Couldn’t Reliably Access The New Content

Despite feeling annoyed by getting shoehorned into the story before I was ready, I was thanking my stars for even being able to get into the game at all. I always head to online communities when I experience glitches to see if it’s cause for concern, and plenty of players on the Infinity Nikki subreddit were reporting their freezes and failed loads by the dozens. Mobile players were struggling to get into the game at all, PC players endured plenty of crashes, and folks like me on PlayStation 5 logged in but to all kinds of jank.

I needed to reload twice during the forced tutorial, since I clicked on the wrong Miracle Outfit thanks to laggy inputs during my clothing-making how-to, and I wasn’t able to back out of the Silvergale Aria outfit screen without completely restarting the game. Once I finally got to the right outfit from the sketchbook menu and made what I needed, it froze on the screen showing Nikki modeling my new addition, and I needed to restart the game all over again.

After speed-running through a story I’d otherwise have enjoyed if it weren’t buggy and forced on me so abruptly, I finally got back to Miraland to do my daily goals at last, back to the Warp Spire near the Stylist’s Guild where I always leave my Nikki for easy access to most of the possible goals. I really like the new calendar design, but as I set off to do my chores, I noticed Florawish was incredibly bright anytime I left a menu. It felt like when you take off sunglasses while it’s still too bright outside, or turning on a light to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I’m currently on a quest to get every Eureka in every color and have been for a few weeks, so I was absolutely elated to head into the Warp Spire menu and see two additional realms to challenge with the update. There are two new five-star Eurekas in each trial realm, and I had 14 Energy Crystals saved, so I was more than ready to get cracking, selecting the hardest version of Timis’ Beauty Lab and eagerly loading in.

It was a familiar setup at first: five minutes on the clock and 20 fragments to collect, but as I set off across the conveyor belts, I noticed the timer wasn’t ticking down. I kept with the minigame regardless, hoping it was just a small visual bug, but then I grabbed my first fragment and that counter didn’t change, either. I ran through the whole challenge, fighting against Nikki each time she refused to move with my joystick inputs, collecting all 20 fragments by counting them aloud myself, but once I was done, nothing happened.

After the five minutes elapsed, I was told I failed the challenge, and to try again. Instead, I turned off my PS5, logged into work to start writing for the day, and here I am complaining about it in this feature, no longer as excited about the new content as I had been, my hype dashed in a way that Nikki apparently refused to when I hit R1.

A Late Launch Is Better Than A Bad One

I know Infinity Nikki and plenty of the other newer gachas are between something of a rock and a hard place right now since plenty of players are caught up with the story, but I don’t know that rushing content out is the solution. The Infinity Nikki Sea of Stars story, outfits, and whimsical new additions in the 1.5 update are all visually stunning, and I will be eager to explore them eventually, but I feel like I got into everything before either I or Infold were ready for me to play it.

As I read other players’ woes online, there was word spreading of a purchasing blackout in the game, with plenty of players hoping to make a statement with their dollars on how they feel about the unfinished content. It stacks with players in Asia who are in the midst of a similar call to action, refusing to pay into the game until the rarity rate on the gacha mechanic becomes a little easier to navigate.

Between the rushed update and people hoping for a change in some of the in-game systems, plenty of players who log in (the ones who could, anyway) are grabbing their free update perks and waiting to spend them, holding off on microtransactions as well until Infold actually does something about the problems.

The 1.5 update for Infinity Nikki might be the biggest new addition to the game since launch, but this isn’t the first time Infold has put out buggy updates in the time since, and players are growing increasingly tired of it. Everything for Sea of Stars is gorgeous, and I’m sure that when they’ve ironed all the kinks out in a few days, it’ll be cool to get to play it – I just wish they’d done that ironing before putting out the update.