In the huge conference rooms of Gamescom 2025, conference participants gaze at towering installations of prefabricated castles and pirate ships. The massive kiosks, reminiscent of a film set, are awe-inspiring, but off center and to the side of these structures is another installation that managed to attract an equally impressive crowd without a flashy monument. Gathered around this stand were chattering fans – many of whom appeared to be women in their 20s and 30s – all lined up in a line long enough to span a city block. They'll stay like that for the better part of an hour, with the only goal worth the wait: to take a photo with their favorite man's cutout from Love and Deep Space.
Developed by Chinese studio Papergames, known for its work on the Nikki franchise, Love and Deepspace is a narrative-driven mobile game where players romance and bond with a team of five men. Since its release in January 2024 – and especially last year – Love and Deepspace has generated fervor comparable to that of the most beloved boy bands. It won the award for Best Mobile Game at Gamescom 2025 and exceeded $750 million. players' gross spending within two years of graduation.
Yet Love and Deep Space is about more than any single statistic or accolade. It is an absolute phenomenon that has also inspired a fandom characterized not only by its sheer size, but also by the devotion of its fans. If you're curious about the game, or rather what makes it so special, here's everything you need to know about the viral sensation Love and Deep Space.
What is love and deep space?
Love and Deepspace is a free otome game available on mobile devices. If you're new to the genre, the term “otome” refers to narrative-rich games in which players can create romantic relationships with the game's characters. The main plot of the game is a science fiction scenario in which the main character, known in the game as a hunter, joins an organization that protects the planet from malevolent aliens. As you play, the game switches between dating scenarios with swooning men, 3D combat missions, and an overarching story that reveals the depth and richness of the game's possibilities.
Love and Deep Space centers on five romantic men: Xavier, Raphael, Zane, Silus and Caleb. Each of them has its own personality and corresponds to its own archetype. Rayafel is young and stupid, while Zayn is reserved but mature. Xavier is protective and calm, while Sylus has an almost menacing aura. Depending on how dominant, gentle, practical, or creative you like your man, players can spend time with the romantic interest (or interests) that best suits their preferences.
Because Love and Deepspace is a live service game, its developers are constantly providing players with new ways to interact with the actors; this results in it containing a lot of mini-games and different features. From the main menu, you can interact with the boys as if they were little Tamagotchi pets. It's easy and enjoyable for you to use your phone to poke and prod them or even breathe on them using the microphone. All of this, as well as other features such as AMSR-style audio playback of the boy breathlessly talking to you, create a sense of intimacy and connection with the characters in this world – something that ultimately helped make it a popular otome game.
Why is Love and Deep Space so popular?
As with most popular games, a combination of cultural factors and the special qualities of Love and Deepspace contributed to the game's success. On a practical level, getting started with the game is easy. All an interested player needs is a smartphone with enough free storage space and they can get started for free. This low barrier to entry ensures that the game can easily attract players. However, that's not all.
Over the past five years, gacha games like Love and Deepspace have grown in popularity in the US thanks to the success of Genshin Impact and similar games. Growing familiarity with the Gacha gaming model and other elements such as industry reports that show live service games designed for women and women are an underserved market, which contributes to its overall popularity. Then you need to think about the game itself.
With Love and Deepspace, Papergames has proven that it's possible to bring hyper-realistic AAA graphics to a mobile game. This, combined with the first-person perspective, helps the game avoid any uncanny valley feel and gives the boys a feeling of genuine liveliness when players interact with them. So it makes sense that Love and Deepspace has leapfrogged other similar games to become the most profitable otome game in the world. USA within a year after graduation.
So are all the Love and Deepspace players really horny for fake men?
Love and Deep Space has a lot of racy outfits and racy moments, but there is no sex or nudity. When things really escalate, the NSFW content is mostly implied rather than shown explicitly, with the game instead emphasizing the romantic elements in the game rather than any skin showing. For example, the excitement might come from Xavier gently taking and kissing the player's hand rather than from any implied sex.
“I love a good romance, so this game feels like a fun, kind of corny, very dramatic romance novel that I can appreciate and enjoy in a million different scenarios,” said Lon, a Raphael fan who started playing in the spring of 2025. “This is a romance novel with its own fan fiction…And I can also write my own fan fiction.”
Given the romantic elements, those unfamiliar with the audience might assume that Love and Deep Space is about people using imaginary men to live out their fantasies. This may be true for some players, but relationships with these virtual men are not so two-dimensional.
Rowan, a Love and Deepspace fan who started playing in early 2025, compared the boys to “court jesters” or “lab specimens” after hearing about the game from friends. If they get bored, they can use the game to play a card game with one of the boys or watch them “fail at the claw game.”
“I think a lot of people misunderstand that fans [Love and Deepspace] usually not In fact I think the guys are real or our guys. It's actually more like we're all fans of the game, and while we have, to use Kpop terminology, “biases” – at the end of the day, we're all just having fun. And yes, this game has combat. Really. It can be really hard sometimes,” Rowan laughed.
Rowan emphasized that it's not just about the boys on screen, but also about other people who enjoy the game.
“I talk to my friends who play the game every day and connect with other fans on TikTok and Bluesky,” Rowan said. “We talk about guys, their habits and voice lines; events that are happening or levels that we are trying to go through. It's a lot like being a fan of a boy band: part of what makes it popular is, in a sense, being popular.”
