Source: GIGABlock Studio

GIGABlock Studio announced on the 10th that it has launched the Steam page for its upcoming story-driven barrier defense game, Dear Magical Girls.

Dear Magical Girls is a strategic defense game where players take on the role of Arin, a fourth-year magical girl, to adjust defensive zones by moving the vertices of a barrier and survive waves of magical beasts. Players receive missions at headquarters, deploy to various sectors, and customize their own builds by combining modules and 'Bounds' before battle.

The game offers a realistic reinterpretation of a magical girl's daily life. Arin is a veteran of four years, having endured 2340 deployments and 1052 days of emergency standby. She grows increasingly exhausted, facing deployments from her very first day and constant phone calls the moment she gets off work. Yet, she still has reasons to keep going: her long-time senior colleague Charlotte, her cousin Lily who idolizes magical girls, and the everyday life she still wishes to protect.

Combat involves freely expanding or contracting the barrier zone. Players move the vertices of the barrier to change the defensive area and attack enemies with magic cannons that travel along the barrier lines. Expanding the barrier allows for more resource collection but also increases the area that must be defended. Conversely, shrinking the zone allows players to concentrate firepower on a smaller area.

In critical situations, players can pause time to reposition vertices and prepare for the next attack. Additionally, using mana gained from expanding the barrier to add new vertices allows for more complex barrier shapes and increased offensive capabilities. Players must continuously adapt the shape of the barrier based on battlefield conditions and resource locations.

Growth elements include modules and 'Bounds.' As the story progresses, new modules and 'Bounds' are unlocked, allowing players to equip new attack methods or enhance the characteristics of existing modules. The key to preparing for battle lies in considering not only the size of the barrier but also the movement of modules and attack patterns.

After missions, players return to the city to experience Arin's daily life as a magical girl. Events unfold as her cousin Lily heads to the Magical Girl Academy, and Arin's life begins to unravel. Amidst repeated deployments and mysterious disappearances, players will draw closer to the truth surrounding magic and the magical girls themselves.

GIGABlock Studio stated that Dear Magical Girls views magical girls not merely as heroes saving the world, but as office workers clocking in every day. They added that they wanted to capture both the strategic combat of manipulating barrier shapes and the story of magical girls whose emotions are slowly wearing thin.

Dear Magical Girls is scheduled for a free release on Steam on July 31, 2026, and will support Korean, English, Japanese, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. More detailed information about the game can be found on its Steam page.