Blue Archive is a tactical role-playing game that allows the player to form and mobilize units of up to six members (two “Specials” and four “Strikers”) with which to participate in various military campaigns.
Students’ strengths can be enhanced in various ways, such as by increasing their levels, weapons, armor and skills. More students can be recruited through the gacha system using in-game currency, which may be purchased through in-app purchases.
The units are mobilized on a turn-based hex map and battle initiates when they encounter an enemy or vice versa. In combat, Strikers march along a straight path and occasionally do combat with enemy groups. They also fire automatic attacks and can hide behind objects to decrease their chances of getting hit. Specials do not engage in direct combat but increase the Strikers’ stats and support them from the backlines instead.
The player has no conventional method of control over battles with the exception of using students’ skills that cost the team’s regenerable synergy bar to use. Students and enemies both have rock-paper-scissors-based attacks and defenses, which determine their strengths and weaknesses. Students get rescued by a helicopter and cannot participate in later battles if they lose all of their health.
Blue Archive is a 2021 real-time strategy role-playing game developed by MX Studio, under the management umbrella of Nexon Games (formerly NAT Games) and IO Division. The player and protagonist is a Sensei who was summoned from outside the academic city-state of Kivotos by the president of the General Student Council, an extrajudicial committee governing the culturally rich regional school districts. Following her sudden disappearance, criminal activity rises around Kivotos and the player is tasked by the remaining members of the council to resolve issues that crop up and help search for the president.
It was first released in February 2021 for Android and iOS devices in Japan by Yostar and self-published worldwide in November of the same year by Nexon, with a global release on Microsoft Windows in July 2025 via Steam, barring Benelux, Vietnam, and Germany and Yostar-managed regions. The game is free-to-play with gacha game mechanics as a means to obtain new characters and improvise strategies via team building.
Two short-length original net anime productions was released between July and November 2022; a full length anime television series adaptation, announced in 2023 and titled as Blue Archive The Animation was produced by Yostar Pictures and Candy Box, and was broadcast from April to June 2024.
Blue Archive takes place in the academic city-state of Kivotos, which was established by the union of thousands of academies. The citizens of Kivotos are composed of three races: Humanoids, which include subraces ranging from the common human to resembling angels, demons, elves, bioroids, and kemonomimi retaining lesser features of various animal races such as ears and tails; intelligent werebeast citizens of various races; and highly-advanced robots with human levels of intelligence and individuality. Due to possessing Halos, humanoids are surprisingly strong and durable enough to resist and survive serious injuries like gunshots and explosions, though they can only be killed by destroying their Halo through certain means. As a result of this, every student possesses some kind of firearm and/or ordnance as a means to protect themselves and fight back against other students, with frequent campus shootouts happening quite a lot across Kivotos.
The city is ruled by the General Student Council (GSC), a federal committee led by a President, who governs the city from the Sanctum Tower with access to every student’s register. Despite the GSC having the main authority within Kivotos, many of the schools operate and lead their districts with virtually autonomous independence with almost every school district having a rich, long-lasting history to them, with the three most powerful schools being Millennium Science School, Trinity General School, and Gehenna Academy.
Before the events of the game, the GSC President summons the player character, a teacher with the education status of Sensei, to be the advisor of SCHALE, an extrajudicial organization established by the president herself. She then proceeds to disappear, which is followed by a rise in criminal activity and military presence in the city. As Sensei helps the students, clubs, and academies of Kivotos with their various problems, the Sensei must also deal with school rivalries, criminal warfare, corrupt corporations, rogue AIs, paranormal creatures, mysterious groups, and insidious cults that threaten Kivotos, often with the assistance of their highly-advanced smart-tablet known as the “Shittim Chest” and its sentient AI named Arona.