Azure Lima

Azure Lima
Logo of Azure Lima since 2017
Genre(s)	Tactical shooter First-person shooter
Developer(s)	Strayfun Entertainment
First release	Azure Lima June 19, 2000
Latest release	Azure Lima: Operation Castlefire March 18, 2020

Azure Lima is a tactical first-person shooter video game franchise by Strayfun Entertainment, based on a military fiction collaborative writing blog of the same name. The franchise revolves around a fictional internationl counterterrorist unit called Azure Lima, inspired by The video franchise was created by computer coding partners Baisho Kenjiro and Furuse Ito, who had personally been contributors to the collaborative blog.

The series debuted with Azure Lima on June 19, 2000. It had five subesequent sequels,  Azure Lima: Watchful Eye (2004), Azure Lima 2: Feather Shield (2006), Azure Lima 3 (2007), Azure Lima: Nojo (2008), and Azure Lima: Nojo 2 (2009). This series, dubbed the "2k era games" had been criticaly and commercially successful. A sixth game was intended to be released in 2010, but Strayfun Entertainment had defaulted into bankruptcy in August 2009 (a few months after Azure Lima: Nojo 2 released), leaving the project in development hell. It would eventually be scrapped entirely in 2012 in favor for a reboot to the franchise, leading to the development of Azure Lima (2017). Azure Lima (2017) was a critical and commercial success, praised for its rejuvenation of the dormant franchise with new mechanics. It has been sustained with developer support and a consistent player-base.

Strayfun Entertainment went on to develop a spin-off game, Azure Lima: Operation Castlefire, published in 2020. While the main games were "corridor shooters" primarily set in urban environments, Azure Lima: Operation Castlefire is set in an open-world rural setting.