Mix drinks and change lives with Girls’ Frontline and VA-11 Hall-A’s crossover

Waifu Bartending meets Waifu Gunfighting

Alcohol and firearms rarely make for a sensible matchup, but they often do make for an entertaining one. So what do you get when you combine two games that couldn’t more intimately alcoholic and trigger-happy? You get the upcoming crossover event between Girls’ Frontline and VA-11 Hall-A!

This pairing between Sukeban Games’ retro cyberpunk bartending adventure and Mica-team’s hit mobile tactical RPG seems rather unlikely at first glance, but on further examination, the two games are surprisingly alike, in spirit, if not in mechanics. VA-11 Hall-A stars a bunch of quirky characters in the middle of a futuristic dystopian metropolis who get by and sling rounds of drinks. Girls’ Frontline stars a bunch of quirky characters patrolling warzones on the fringes of dystopian metro-zones who…also get by and sling rounds of a more literal sort.

As you may have noticed, our collaboration with @SukebanGames‘s VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action will commence on August 6th! It’s time to mix drinks and change lives, Commanders!#GirlsFrontline pic.twitter.com/i3FAT8NDO3

— Girls’ Frontline-EN Official (@GirlsFrontlineE) July 22, 2019

The event promises a number of useful goodies like costumes, dorm decorations, and supplies, but the headline additions are no less than six new playable “T-dolls” (read: characters) based on the VA-11 Hall-A cast.

The unlockable characters include shotgun-packing tanker Dana Zane, Dorothy Haze with a versatile submachine gun, bespectacled hacker Alma (who totes laser drones but counts as a “machine gun” unit), the Cat Boomer Stella (whose drones are best for sniping as a rifle unit), and Sei, an ex-“White Knight” cop who wields a Judge Dredd-like handgun. Cyberpunk bartender Jill Stingray herself is also playable, but serves cold booze instead of hot lead. Other additions include a series of combat and narrative missions, and even a minigame replicating the core gameplay of VA-11 Hall-A itself. 

The event will kick off on August 6th, and runs through August 26th, leaving plenty of time for interested VA-11 Hall-A fans to check out Girls Frontline (and vice-versa!). Those leery of trying an anime gacha game may be heartened to know that unlike many of its peers, Girls Frontline is fairly friendly to free players. New characters are acquired mainly with in-game resources rather than microtransaction currencies, which are reserved for trying to acquire cosmetic costumes and decor. You might even enjoy its core story of very depressed androids wielding – and named after – vintage real-world guns, as they try to make it in a world that at times seems built like their own personal trauma palace.