MiHoYo recently announced that its AI desktop companion software, "BSide: Olivia Lin," will cease operations. The title entered Early Access on Steam on July 13 and operated for only 28 days. The official reason given for the shutdown is an adjustment to the product's phased planning.
According to the announcement schedule, at 15:00 on August 27, an offline client will be released, and all online interactive features such as letter writing and MIDI music uploads will be simultaneously disabled. At 15:00 on August 31, the product will be removed from the Steam store and the servers will be permanently closed.
The official notice reminds players to download the offline package before the server shutdown and manually back up online data such as letters and custom music libraries. All online content will be unrecoverable after the servers close and will not be synced to the offline version. The offline version will permanently retain single-player features such as piano performance and dynamic desktop wallpapers, which can be run without an internet connection.
"BSide: Olivia Lin" is positioned as a digital human AI companion tool. The character, Lin Li, is set as a piano-major girl, with a focus on musical interaction and letter-based confessions. The game has accumulated over a thousand reviews on Steam, with an overall rating of "Very Positive."
Notably, another AI companion product from MiHoYo's co-founder, AnuNeko, had previously been permanently shut down. With these two anime-style AI companion trial projects coming to an end in succession, the team's resources are shifting to other AI-related R&D directions.