Our days of piloting a little spaceship through beautiful firework patterns of bullets are sadly coming to an end, as the Western branch of Cave Interactive—the preeminent Japanese studio that makes impossible shoot’em ups known as danmaku, or bullet hells—is ceasing communication with the West. On their blog and Twitter, they’ve posted notices to this effect. 

What this means for Cave is uncertain, but it’s definitely not good news. While they’ll continue to release games in small batches in the East as they always do, you’ll probably have to import them. Anyone who has spent much time with Deathsmiles and DoDonPachi knows this is a sad thing. Maybe the audience with the pinpoint accuracy needed to play their titles is getting too old?