Phantasy Star Online Celebrated Its 25th Anniversary in 2025

Asalam aleikoum how's it going. So yeah PSO celebrates its 25th anniversary on December 21, 2025. I think the sole noteworthy celebration event this year was the Pop Up Shop in Japan in October-December. The first half in Shinjuku, the second half in Akiba, till Dec 21 2025. Check here for details if you're actually in Japan. I wish I was.

Maybe there were other things that slipped past my Twitter news lists. But yeah I mean there's nothing to do in particular. Sega ain't gonna do anything. Even the Pop Up Shop simply used the games' original artworks for its merch, with only one brand new artwork for the 25th anniversary (and I'm not sure it's by Akikazu Mizuno, more on that below). I guess it's fine. Game-wise at least, it's not like we need anything from Sega. If you still like PSO, you can just keep playing it now on private servers, I heard Ephinea is good. There's even people who still play PSO offline only lol.

(I recently discovered this JP streamer called Zunmochikoa playing PSO Ver 2 on Dreamcast offline. She told me she already played Blue Burst online (PSO Blue Burst is the final version of PSO, available on PC), but never ever played online on Dreamcast. I wonder if it's because she's too young, or just never had a Dreamcast/subscription back in the early 2000s).

(Another streamer I know who streams PSO sometimes is Jinx. She speaks English and plays online but only with friends I believe, so I don't think you'd be able to participate).

(Also I'm not talking about them in particular but it feels a bit funny when I see people playing PSO and not use some of the game's secret tricks. Such as opening the menu to keep running near enemies/traps. Or how they're unfamiliar with some secret switches etc, when all that stuff used to be more common knowledge among players up to the 2010s. It's not "LOST MEDIA" like some white USAjin youtuber would say, since a lot of forums talking about these things are still online. But yeah it shows how cool the community aspect of an online game can be if it's filled with secrets like PSO is. And it's a good reminder, be it with games or more important things in life, if there's no one to teach you your culture then it gets lost. That's the story of tons of people around the world whose ascendants got colonized and forcefully displaced by EU and USA).

As a side note, when Phantasy Star Online 2 released in 2012, Sega started calling PSO1 and 2 the "PSO Series". As such, this Pop Up Shop served as both a 25th anniversary event for PSO and for the PSO Series as a whole. So it also included some PSO2 merch, including resale of some old merch. Pretty cool.

(PSO Series is supposed to include Universe, Zero, Portable, PSO2ES, Nova, and Idola as well, but I don't think there were any merch at the Pop Up Shop for these. Note that there's no Idola character on the 15th anniversary artwork above since the game didn't exist yet).

The only brand new artwork AFAIK is the one on the tshirt. It's the brand new, official 25th anniversary artwork.

Besides the Pop Up Shop, the sole new thing AFAIK announced is the Vol 07 of the Phantasy Star Players Enjoy Club official doujinshi / fanzine.

P.SPEC Vol 07 is supposed to release in late March 2026. Vol 06 was back in 2019. Vol 7 will include artwork, interviews, and comments from the current NGS development team, but also some stories regarding the development of PSO1. Maybe it'll be interesting if someone can check it out and translate some stuff from it one day.

The cover for P.SPEC Vol 07 uses the brand new 25th anniversary artwork. I don't think Akikazu Mizuno is the illustrator for the cover right? Their style changed a lot starting PSO2 if you compare with how it looked like in PSO1 era, but this still doesn't look like them.

The cover for P.SPEC Vol 06 doesn't look like Akikazu either. I assume they get different artists each time.

Also, I initially thought it was weird that there was absolutely no teasing for the 15th anniversary of PSO2 this year. Then I realized that the game released in 2012, not 2011. So the anniversary is in 2027 and the teasing should start somewhere in 2026. I get the wrong impression because I first played PSO2 with one of the first Closed Alpha Tests in 2011, but the game released in 2012.

It looks like NGS is starting to do more and more nostalgia stuff though, as the last update added a new version of Dark Falz Luther. Feels weird PSO2 is almost 15 years old already. I remember some of it like it was yesterday. I was so hype back when the first trailer for PSO2 got revealed in 2010 or so.

I can't find the exact trailer anymore, but it was more or less the first opening of PSO2 so I just linked that. But yeah as a big PSO player I was so excited then. I don't think it's possible for me to get as hyped for my hobbies now. Maybe if there's a new Sakura Taisen and it has actual black muslim characters or something.

Like I always say, PSO2 is the sole dress-up game where you can officially dress-up as classic characters like Arcueid, Shinguuji Sakura, Eva's Asuka, and also as some character from whatever is the latest popular anime. These days it's Frieren to Oshi no Ko. Whatever anime it is, it'll get a collab in PSO2 NGS if it's popular. It's the otaku version of Fortnite. So it'll probably still keep going for a long time.

I discovered PSO on Dreamcast then played the different versions on Dreamcast, Gamecube, up to Blue Burst private servers on PC in 2011. I never played Universe or Portable, though followed them from afar, checking news and making fun of lyrics and trailer narration like WE BAAAAAAAATTLE FOR FREEEEEEEEEDOM!! THIS IS A BAAAAATTLE AGAINST THE DAAAAAAARK!! FANTAJII SUTAAA YUNIBAASU!! IRUMINASU NO YABOU!! And then I got accepted for the first Alpha test for PSO2, and switched to PSO2 once it fully released. I played it till 2017 or so. It's definitely great as a dress-up game but it required so much grinding to get money to buy the outfits you wanted. And the systems got so bloated and annoying over the years. Some ideas were good on paper but ultra time-consuming and lacking in terms of rewards/fun, like the Mining/Farming/Fishing/Rings system, or the Pet raising class.

I assume New Genesis is the same even if it's a brand new game. The only reason they didn't call it PSO3 is because they still use the same client and people could transfer some of their outfits right. I never played NGS myself but Sasuraiger made a really good roundup of the game in January 2025.

If I have the time one day insha Allah, I'll definitely restart playing PSO again, on Ephinea or something. But I don't think I'll ever go back to PSO2. Unless my hypothetical future wife likes it or something then I'd play it with her. I guess I at least would much prefer this than her being a LoL player.

But yeah anyway. PSO2 was initially PSO's 10th anniversary project. For the 15th anniversary of PSO and the 5th anniversary of PSO2, you had the PSO2 anime and the Episode 4 update. Later on, in 2021, Sega released PSO2 New Genesis, which was like the 20th anniversary project of PSO and the 10th anniversary project of PSO2. The dates are slightly shifted but it works.

So I assume the next big thing will be in 2026, even if technically it'll be the 26th anniversary of PSO and not the 25th. I assume they'll do something like NGS Ver 3?

PSO2 The Animation was peak skibbidy kino absolute cinema

Oh and I brought up the PSO2 anime just now. I'm talking about Phantasy Star Online 2 The Animation, the first anime adaptation. You should watch it if you never did. There's another anime, PSO2 Oracle, that retraces the stories of PSO2 Episode 1-2, never watched that one.

Basically in Episode 4 of PSO 2, the protagonists end up reaching Earth, which is like an advanced version of our current society. And people there play PSO2, without knowing the NPCs are real people and that the characters they create and play as are the "fake" ones. Not saying much to avoid spoiling but it's pretty interesting. The series also works as a good romcom action too. They also tried to include a bunch of various types of MMO players too among the side characters, as a PR stunt to show anyone can play PSO2.

PSO2 The Animation won't have the same impact if you never played the game yourself. But I think it's still a really good standalone story, even if you don't check out PSO2 Episode 4 later on to learn what happens before and after the anime. For a one cour anime, it was pretty good and a pretty original game to anime adaptation. And the final episode has a Cool Getter Robo Reference.

Oh and the protagonist Itsuki is voiced by Shouta Aoi and it was one of his first major roles after Uta no Prince Sama (I still never got into UtaPri, need to try it out one day). Shouta Aoi also voices Louis in King of Prism.

I need to actually check the stories for Episode 4-6 myself one day. Hitsugi's story in Episode 4 was really good but I never saw how it ends. I still played PSO2 but wouldn't do any main story stuff at that point.

Last but not least, I need to play the original Phantasy Star games one day too. I only played 1 and 4. Still sad thinking about how Kodama Rieko passed away so young. I'm sure you already know if you're reading this article, but she was one of the main developers of the series, and worked on a lot of other things like Eternal Arcadia. Before passing away in 2022 she was working at M2 on a lot of cool stuff.

Recently, VG Densetsu is publishing a really cool and complex series of article retracing Kodama's work. I dunno how VG Densetsu manages to do so much work for free lol. I can't do this anymore lol both financially and mentally. Go and sub to their Patreon if you're rich.

And that's all I guess thanks for reading everything. If you liked this piece, make sure to share it with your oomfies. You can subscribe to the newsletter to receive future posts directly in your inbox.

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