The game formerly known as We Are OFK
You might remember a certain indie-pop miniseries game called We Are OFK, which started in August 2022 and released episodes up through Sept. 8. OFK is getting a rebrand today, as the developer is changing the name of its episodic adventure to Pop. Love. Panic! The OFK Story.
Announced in a post today from the group’s Twitter account, the band announces that its origin story game has a new name.
“We feel #PopLovePanic fits our story better!” said the band. “‘We Are OFK‘ had a ‘If You Know You Know’ vibe, and we wanna be better about reaching out to people who haven’t already heard of our band.”
The name change coincides with a sale on Steam, where you can get the full run of Pop. Love. Panic! for 30% off at the moment.
What’s in a name?
Though it sounds strange, changing the name of a game isn’t as uncommon an experience as you’d think. I started back-searching instances in which this has happened, and found plenty of recent examples. Inti Creates retitled Grim Guardians to Gal Guardians in March, and Ubisoft changed Gods & Monsters to Immortals: Fenyx Rising prior to its release. That’s not even accounting for the differences in titles between regions, like how Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios is now doing away with the Western Yakuza moniker and unifying the series under Like a Dragon.
As for OFK and Pop. Love. Panic! The OFK Story, I hope the rebrand works well. We Are OFK has been on my backlog since reviews seemed warm on it. Though some were confused by the concept—an interactive fiction telling the origin story of a band, like video games meets The Gorillaz—it’s unique and interesting. Whether OFK has more discography planned or not, it does seem like they’ve done something a bit outside the box already.
