'BTS World' mobile game is basically BTS fanfiction
"The crowd breaks up as the raindrops start to fall faster. The rain doesn't faze Hoseok, however. He just keeps dancing."
No, this is not a piece of erotic BTS fanfiction, these are actual lines of your inner monologue from the new BTS World game, which rolled out in 249 countries on Wednesday.
Developed by Netmarble for iOS and Android devices, the official mobile game for the wildly popular K-pop group is structured over several different chapters, the first of which sees you recruiting the extremely popular boy band, and others which see you finding the dudes a dorm, or solving casual mysteries.
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But throughout the whole experience, the tenderly scripted scenarios combined with simulated messages and phone calls from the band members can make BTS World feel like one long steamy piece of hot ARMY fanfiction between you and the guys.
When you load the game, the very first thing you’re told is that the events of the game are fictional, with no intended connection to actual individuals, incidents or even ideas. Um, sure.
You’re sent a mysterious message from an unknown sender that frankly looks like spam. It’s a “BTS Concert Contest Invitation” and all you have to do is click the URL to enter. Seems shady. Let’s click it! Landing at a competition page, you’re encouraged to send “words of support” to BTS to enter.
Ticket secured, and we’re off to the arena.
But wait, something’s happening, the delightful and very famous faces of the group are being wiped from billboards, bus shelters, even your ticket, and we’re time-traveling back to 2012 before BTS will make their debut a year later with their album 2 Cool 4 Skool — brush up with this comprehensive BTS history.
The group’s leader, RM, a.k.a. Kim Nam-joon, is performing solo before you shove a Big Hit Entertainment contract under his nose. That’s right, you just woke up in 2012 and now you have a Big Hit employee ID badge. HOT. Time to recruit the rest of the group in stages or "missions."
For the most part, it’s a narrative game with some pretty steamy, very cheesy, and highly flowery writing — for example, “he glistens with sweat … the eyes of the young man up on stage shine from the crowd’s energy."
The whole time, all seven members of BTS are messaging you, calling you, even giving you gifts to help you through the game. It's a supremely clever, very thirsty mechanic from the Netmarble team, engaging with an extremely dedicated fan base, who self-identify as the ARMY.
You’ll chase Suga, a.k.a Min Yunki down to return a bouquet he dropped from his motorcycle earlier (seriously), and later valiantly save him from a falling flower pot, only to have him help you patch up your injuries while your inner monologue says things like, “I can feel the warmth of Yunki’s hand on my wrist.” I mean, you try being a professional band manager with sexy first aid like that!
“I can feel the warmth of Yunki’s hand on my wrist.”
It's like this with all seven members of the group, a frothing inner monologue that reads like a page from a lusty fan diary. “All my uneasiness evaporates and is replaced with happiness and relief when I see Namjun standing in front of me.”
"I lock eyes with Seok Jin. He's smiling. It's not a photo this time."
"I get a feeling in my sinuses like I'm about to cry... but suddenly, I feel something cold." Of course it's raining when you find J-Hope a.k.a. Hoseok at a street dance competition. "I slip an umbrella over Hoseok's head as he organizes his gear."
"As I head toward Seok Jin's university to offer him an audition, my stomach is full of butterflies," you think before you literally chase him off a bus.
The more you converse with the band members, the higher your “affinity level” gets. You can even comment on their fake Instagrams. The screen keeps flashing up words like “This isn’t a dream... right?”, which is something you can ask the band several times rather wistfully.
Once you've successfully recruited the band, there's plenty more to do, but it's that thirsty script that makes BTS World a truly clever fan-service game. While the classic 1998 Spice Girls PlayStation game, Spice World, allowed you to prepare the group for live appearances, there wasn't the type of fantasy scene-setting BTS World has in cheesy spades.
And while more recent celebrity mobile games like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and Britney Spears' American Dream also championed the rise to stardom as the game's main objective, neither successfully simulated this level of staged intimacy with the celebrity subject.
Perhaps the key to the game's format is the idea that feelings of lust for members of a pop group are as old as popular music itself, and that a fanfiction vibe could let fans explore and celebrate those feelings in a fun, safe space. It's one of the things fanfiction does best.
But it's maybe not everyone's cup of tea.
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"Jimin's voice grows quieter and quieter. He must be feeling shy," your inner self observes. "Even though he's talking to me, it kind of feels like he's trying to convince himself..."
Go forth and manage, BTS World is out now.
Topics Music
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
