Ninetail’s VenusBlood Frontier was a strategic, role-playing visual novel that had its English translation Kickstarted back in late 2018. The visual novel went on to release both as an all-ages edition and as an R18+ edition on Steam and Jast USA.
Well, Ninetail is back and this time around they’re aiming to get the English translation of VenusBlood Hollow crowdfunded through a brand new Kickstarter campaign this fall.
Over on the official Ninetail website, they explain…
“Now then, we would like to announce that we plan to launch another English Localisation project! And this time, the game chosen for localisation is……VenusBlood HYPNO!
Considering this is an international release, we have decided to change the name from VenusBlood HYPNO to VenusBlood HOLLOW! This is to help facilitate the process of getting the game approved on certain platforms, and we appreciate your understanding regarding this matter.
We’ve certainly learned quite a few things about running a Kickstarter project thanks to our previous foray into crowdfunding with VenusBlood FRONTIER, and we hope to apply said knowledge to this next project in a way that will bring about a smoothly run, satisfying Kickstarter project!
As for when the Kickstarter Project is set to launch…For now, we are currently still preparing behind the scenes, therefore, we estimate the Kickstarter Project will launch sometime in September or October of this year.”
The likely reason for changing “Hypno” to “Hollow” is due to some platforms banning hypnosis porn, or the allusion to hypnosis porn. For instance, Patreon has banned all art related to sexual hypnosis, because they claim it bypasses consent. Yes, this is the kind of crazy times we live in where absurd rules doled out by mentally ill Social Justice types now dictate what sort of words can be used in a game’s title.
Anyway, they released a promotional trailer and an introduction to the gameplay, which you can check out below.
Much like VenusBlood Frontier, VenusBlood Hollow will release in two different versions on Jast USA and Steam.
The Jast USA version will be the R18+ release, with all of the hardcore and explicit scenes you’ve come to expect from the series, while the Steam version will release as an “All-Ages” title. Now keep in mind this doesn’t mean ‘E’ for Everyone or ‘T’ for Teen by the ESRB’s standards. “All-Ages” in VN terms typically relates to a game that spans content that could be as tame as ‘E’ for Everyone or as explicit as ‘M’ for Mature. Basically, it can span the content gamut between every rating save for Adults Only.
It’s not the most efficient way to designate content for visual novels, but it’s just how the system works.
In any case, I doubt the R18+ version will be available on Steam, because last time they had trouble securing a release for the all-ages version after the Steam version was slightly delayed.
Anyway, Dualtail will be returning to work with Ninetail on the development and you can look for the Kickstarter to go live in either September or October of this year. For more information feel free to visit the official Ninetail website.
(Thanks for the news tip Seryuu)