Azur Lane

Azur Lane is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game by Chinese developers Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi, released in 2017 for iOS and Android operating systems. The game is set in an alternate timeline of World War II. Players play a side-scrolling shooter with female, anthropomorphic moe characters based on the warships of the major belligerents. Other gameplay elements, such as setting up a home and marrying off characters, are also present. Azur Lane launched in China in May and in Japan in September 2017, and has since become very popular, especially in Japan, where the player base reached five million within four months of release. Players voted the game in the top five of Google Play's "Best Game of 2017" list for that region. Critics attribute the game's popularity to its original and well-designed gameplay system.