Love And Deepspace, the mobile game that serves players sweet, romantic, and sometimes horny fantasies featuring five hunks of grade-A quality man, hasn’t wholly recovered from the social and economic battering it took when the developers released, then un-released its sixth love-interest, Valko. His fiercely loyal cadre of fans have dug in their heels, remaining committed to not spending a dime on the gacha game until he is re-released. Each new event brings hope it will be The One and while that hasn’t happened yet, this latest event seems to be actively making things worse.
New in Love and Deepspace is a crossover event with Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villenueve’s 2017 follow-up to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. I can’t really tell why LADS is featuring an event tied to a Totally Fine But Otherwise Didn’t Really Need To Be Made sequel to one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, unless maybe this is some circuitous attempt to remind people there’s an Amazon TV show set in the Blade Runner universe coming next month. But some of the game’s messaging around the event is rubbing Valko fans the wrong way.
What you touch—is it real?
Love and Deepspace × Blade Runner 2049 Crossover Event [Rendered Real] is coming soon!
Log in and check in to claim ✨Special Crossover Rewards for FREE and recreate iconic movie scenes with him!💫Event Duration: 05:00 on Oct. 19 to 04:59 on Nov. 5… pic.twitter.com/Rqt9uMOkkl
— Love and Deepspace (@Love_Deepspace) October 18, 2026
The event isn’t particularly groundbreaking. Players can earn daily rewards of in-game currency and a special photo background and emote that recreate the scene from the movie in which K, played by Ryan Gosling, interacts with a digital billboard advertising a mass-market digital girlfriend named Joi, one of which is waiting for him at home.
Fans are pointing out that the fate of K and Joi’s relationship—she gets destroyed—seems an uncomfortably close mirror to what happened with Valko. To fans, it seems like Infold Games is either the least aware company on the planet or is taking the piss, mocking players for their continued attachment to Valko, long after his removal seems like settled fact.
the audacity to talk about “real love” in a time like this. dude. #BringValkoBack https://t.co/ETVR0J9jCp
— gutz | VALKO IS LOVED 🐺 (@loseurgutz) October 18, 2026
Wow, the game that commercializes fake digital love as a product collabs with a movie that criticizes the commercialization of fake digital love as a product! Who would’ve thought LADS is so self-critical! https://t.co/T5MXpfdLxx
— Aelen (@aelen_altria) October 18, 2026
A crossover event featuring a movie that’s almost a decade old and that has little to link it to the current moment, using references that seem to reflect the parasocial relationship your community is currently tearing itself apart over…To quote Robert Pattinson in Primetime, “You see how this looks, right?” Or! This is an elaborate self-aware troll. But here’s what makes sense to me.
If players hadn’t thrown a literal shit-fit, Valko would have been out right now. Both Valko’s announcement trailer and the trailer for the Blade Runner 2049 event are stuffed to the gills with cyberpunk imagery and as many fans have pointed out online, Valko would have been a perfect fit for this kind of collab. Plus, with the limited knowledge I have of how a marketing calendar works, I gather this event was likely set in stone long ago, with the expectation that a certain wolfboy would be among the cast, able to take advantage of some good ol’ fashioned brand synergy. He’s not, but the money’s already been spent, so a Valko-less event that’s perfect for him is unfortunately what players get.
