Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Mei is the new Higurashi mobage coming to iOS and Android this summer in Japan. The game is described as an RPG with gacha. Higurashi Mei will follow a brand new story whose draft was written in cooperation with Ryukishi07. The scriptwriter is Saichi Kanou, who worked on the scenario of the Higurashi console ports. The game's theme song is titled Frustration, sung by Ayane (彩音), and with lyrics and composition by Chiyomaru Shikura. The game's battle BGMs will be handled by Motoi Sakuraba.

Higurashi Mei includes three brand new characters. Just like the new upcoming Higurashi anime adaptation, Higurashi Mei also uses Akio Watanabe as its character designer. A key visual featuring K1, Rena, and the three new characters was revealed:

Higurashi Mei is developed by D-Techno and Smileaxe. D-Techno is a Japanese studio who recently made the Bofuri mobage, but is mainly known for making character alarm apps of popular franchises. They did one for Steins;Gate, Strike the Blood, SSSS Gridman, Prism Illya, etc. Smileaxe is the studio developing Moeshu Box, a tower defense mobage where types of Sake are anthropomorphized into cute girls and cool boys.

As usual with mobage, a pre-registration campaign is ongoing. it's at over 30,000 pre-registrations for now. You can preregister on the game's official site. It's in Japanese needless to say.

The new Higurashi anime was supposed to start airing in July, but was delayed to October due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This news is pretty unsurprising and is definitely something that was decided alongside the new anime adaptation. Higurashi is pretty iconic and popular and yet never got its own mobile game as far as I know. Many outside Japan tends to dislike mobile games and sociage, but they've been extremely popular for years now in Asia and Japan. I'd say ever since the Puzzle & Dragons boom in the early 2010s. This is where the money is at instead of console games, and it's a much bigger market nowadays in Japan than consoles.

I'm particularly curious to see and hear what Higurashi with Sakuraba's synthesizers will be like.

The Steam version of the first Higurashi game is currently free. An ultimate version of Umineko is coming someday in Japan on PS4 and Switch. The newest When They Cry game series, Ciconia, is also ongoing. Lastly, Ryukishi07 and Entergram are also working on Kaleidoscope of Phantasm Prison, one of the final PlayStation Vita games.