Dance Central, baby. ♡

While I never had the honor of playing any of the games, I experienced the series through Youtube, Fanfiction.net and DeviantArt. I still watch Youtube videos of the games to this day.

My relationship with the series has been an emotional one. I was introduced to DC1 as a blind date, and was instantly smitten. The honeymoon period continued with DC2.

I was euphoric over the DC3 trailer that released while DC2 was still very much a thing. It was a relationship full of romance, action and wonder. I couldn't have been happier.

DC3 and its fandom got me through an incredibly rough patch in my life. Dance Central was my comfort blanket then. It held me close. Made me smile.

But then our relationship tapered off after DC3.

Much to my surprise, the series told me we needed some time apart. That declaration came out of nowhere, but with no small amount of sadness, I accepted it. So we went our separate ways, me feeling as though I had to abandon a huge part of myself.

Then DCS was announced. Finally, I thought, after so long I was FINALLY going to be reunited with my long lost love! And it was going to be just as it was before!

Only it wasn't.

DC came back into my life all right, but I could hardly recognize it. And it was as if it had started dating someone else. Without telling me anything. The only happiness I got out of DCS was Glitch.

(so yeah, i was one of the five people that actually loved his redesign)

My time with DCS was bittersweet. While I was happy to see Dance Central again, too much had changed for the worse, and even more was removed.

Once again, we went our separate ways, DC going off on a path far, far away from mine. Despite being brokenhearted, I was hopeful we'd meet again. And maybe, just maybe, we'd go back to the way we were.

Several years later, DCVR was announced. DC had once again evolved into something I couldn't recognize, but it was happy to see me. I couldn't buy into its return for a long time, though. Even though DC had come back, I felt so much of it was still missing.

Fast forward to March 12 2021. I finally realized I had been completely wrong about DCVR, thanks to a Youtube review of the game (and Mo's voicelines). I now see DCVR as a fun, magical adventure. One packed with adorable character lore.

Unfortunately, Dance Central left me once again, perhaps feeling as though I didn't appreciate it enough. So once again, our time together was painfully short.

So this was announced a few days ago. Our buddies at Harmonix are teaming up with Epic in pursuit of the metaverse.

This wouldn't be much of a problem. This would actually be really great news, considering Dance Central VR #1 is a step in the direction of the metaverse. And they just released a new Oculus.

But this is directly from the article:

Our team will work with Epic to create musical journeys and gameplay for Fortnite.

Read it for yourself. :( The bit about Fortnite is near the bottom.

Regardless of whatever you think about the metaverse, this is pretty bad news. They explicitly said they're ready to work on Fortnite, and nothing else.

This very well may be the nail in Dance Central's coffin.

Apparently there's this little thing called the Oculus 2 that just came out. DCVR1 came out on the first Oculus. Anyone see where I'm going with this?

Apparently, unless you're playing Fuser, every Harmonix fandom is in a drought. I guess we Dance Central fans can draw comfort from Rock Band fans suffering right along with us. But if there's any hope, any hope at all, in us seeing DC again, it would have to be DCVR2 for the new Oculus.

It may take Harmonix to catch onto the idea. It make take them a few months. It may take them a year or two. Considering how long we've gone without a game, beggars can't be choosers at this point. If they were to announce DCVR2 at the end of next year, or even in 2024, I would be euphoric.

We may not get another DC until Kingdom Hearts 4 comes out, but anything would be better than nothing at all at this point.

Someone wrote up a faux announcement for DC5 in the Wiki. I wanted to believe in it, but couldn't find any evidence for it. Now the announcement is gone. :( But we can hold onto the itty bitty thread of hope that we'll eventually get DCVR2 for the Oculus 2...

Harmonix isn't the only one giving the middle finger to their own series. Apparently a lot of video game developers have a lot of series they're neglecting.

Comforting yet overwhelmingly sad.

Now look at where we are. Harmonix is nowhere near E3.

And it's not just Dance Central people are up in arms about-people are also asking for new DLC for other HMX games and protesting bugs in other HMX games too.

But they're getting nowhere.

Meanwhile, there are countless comments about how pretty much every other game studio has miserably failed to impress at E3 2021. With Ubisoft, it's 'where's Splinter Cell?'. Square-Enix fans want a new Deus Ex game, and some more FF7R and FF16 news.

While it's comforting to know that Harmonix isn't the only company that's flipping off its own series, it's actually overwhelmingly sad how almost every company's failing so many fans right now.