Shortly after Infinity Nikki launched late on Wednesday night, hackers took down developer Infold Games’ official Infinity Nikki website to display a message encouraging suicide and pointing players toward Genshin Impact along with a QR code that seemingly led to a Discord server. The website for Infold Games’ science fiction romance simulation game Love and Deepspace was hacked with the same message, according to social media reports.
Players started reporting the hacked message shortly before 2 a.m. ET on Thursday, just hours after the game went live late on Dec. 4. Several people on Reddit reported heading to the Infinity Nikki website to download the game and instead being greeted with the hacked message. “Kill yourself, or just better try Genshin Impact private server,” the Infinity Nikki and Love and Deepspace websites read. The company has not yet commented on the hack. We’ll update this story when it does.
The website appeared to be down, according to social media accounts, for about an hour.
An Infinity Nikki representative told Polygon the company was “surprised and annoyed, but ultimately glad that no significant damage was done” and that the hacked message was taken down quickly. “Obviously a bit of a bummer, but they’re more focused on launch and making sure Nikki’s birthday goes well than worrying about some bad actors ruining their big day,” the spokesperson said.
Infinity Nikki and Genshin Impact are both free-to-play gacha games from Chinese developers, and there is seemingly some overlap among their player bases. There’s been some comparison to Genshin Impact when discussing Infinity Nikki, but ultimately the gameplay is quite different between the two. However, it’s been described by the media as both dress-up Genshin Impact and a “Genshin Impact killer.”
Infinity Nikki is available on Android, iOS, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC.
If you or anyone you know is considering suicide or is anxious, depressed, or upset, or just needs to talk to someone, there are people who want to help.
In the U.S.:
- Crisis Text Line: Text START to 741741 from anywhere in the U.S., at any time, about any type of crisis.
- The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call or text 988
- [Note: As of July 16, 2022, anybody in the U.S. can simply dial 988 to be routed to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The original number, 1-800-273-TALK (8255), remains available as well.]
- The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386
Outside the U.S.:
- The International Association for Suicide Prevention lists a number of suicide hotlines by country.
- Befrienders Worldwide
