Bandai Namco Online has announced that the company will merge with Bandai Namco Entertainment at the start of Bandai Namco’s 2026 financial year on April 1, 2025. Bandai Namco Entertainment will be the surviving company.

Bandai Namco Online was founded in 2009 as a spinoff of and, at one point, was one of the three pillars of Bandai Namco’s games business. Bandai Namco Online handled online-heavy games, while Bandai Namco Amusement manages arcade games and Bandai Namco Entertainment publishes console and handheld (including mobile) titles. In Gundam terms:

• Online -> Gundam Evolution
• Amusement -> Gundam Extreme Vs.
• Entertainment -> Gundam Breaker

Bandai Namco Online’s major troubles started with the 2022 shutdown of the long-running Mobile Suit Gundam Online, followed by the consecutive failures of Gundam Evolution (service ended November 29, 2023) and Blue Protocol (service ending January 18, 2025).

With this absorption-type merger, Bandai Namco Entertainment will take over both BNO’s existing titles—including IDOLiSH7, SD Gundam Operations, and Gundam Tribe—as well as their 3.98 billion yen (over $25 million) debt, which Sparking! ZERO’s Day One sales will immediately offset.