Changes

Mica Team (incorporated as [[Sunborn|Shanghai Sunborn Network Technology Company]]) started development on Girls' Frontline in early 2015. Mica's lead Yuzhong (羽中, a pseudonym) enlisted the help of his personal friend and CEO of Yostar, Yao Meng (姚蒙), who established Shanghai Array Network Technology Company (上海阵面网络公司) to help fund and produce the game. Yuzhong and Yao Meng had previously worked together on a short-lived amateur games fanzine, then on [[Codename: Bakery Girl]] in 2013 with Yao Meng's previous company GameMaster. Array was expected to handle distribution of the game and its derivative products and share revenues with Sunborn in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Japan.<ref name=Chuapp />

The game was first announced on 4 June 2015 then shown during ComiCup 16.<ref>Game announcement on [https://www.hexieshe.com/650177/ Hexieshe] and [http://www.chuapp.com/article/171949.html Chuapp]</ref> The first beta for the game launched on 31 August 2015 with an initial distribution of 500 accounts, and attracted a total of about 6000 people. The second beta launched on 16 October 2015, with an initial distribution of 6000 codes. With 3000 to 4000 players logging in at once, the game's servers crashed for 8 hours due to various technical oversights from Mica Team. About 10,000 activation codes were distributed in total for the second beta. 2 hours after the launch of the third beta on 25 January 2016, the servers went unresponsive for 9 days and problems with the game's Weibo account prevented Mica Team from communicating on the issue during a day and a half. The beta players nonetheless spent around 2 million RMB in the cash shop, expecting their accounts to be transferred in full to the final game. The game was delayed after the third beta, then scheduled for release in Mainland China on 20 May 2016.

Chuapp reported that the game's development was significantly hindered by repeated miscommunication, reduced team sizes, lack of internal skills, unclear distribution of responsibilities, legal disputes and general trust issues between Sunborn and Array. Shanghai Xinfan Asset Management, one of Sunborn's main investors, reportedly pushed Sunborn to end their partnership with Array in favor of [http://www.windplay.cn/ Windplay] and later [http://www.digisky.com/ Digital Sky], who would become Sunborn's launch partners. The internal debacle was followed by the general public on Weibo and described by Chuapp as the second big public drama on the Chinese mobile games market after Warship Girls R. Due to contractual issues with Array, Sunborn was denied access to data from the third beta and asked beta players to take on a multi-steps verification system to transfer their accounts to the final game. Array ceased operating after the partnership with Sunborn ended.<refname=Chuapp>[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SPU1NIu8z7avwSDq3hpXLEyg64rBqbjCRKkX3fFBQyE/edit Translated article from Chuapp]</ref>

The game's Japanese release was announced in Japan January 2016 to be handled by [https://web.archive.org/web/20160318165041/http://dl.wave-game.com/ Wave-Game] and planned for the same year,<ref>[http://www.chuapp.com/article/223822.html Chuapp article]</ref> but the partnership was scrapped and the game delayed to July 2018 due to a trademark dispute where Sunborn Japan engaged in legal proceedings to buy the name Girls' Frontline (少女前線) from its local owners, but was unable to do so as it had been transferred to a third party before the expected transaction date. The trademark is instead known as Doll's Frontline (ドールズフロントライン) in Japan.<ref>[https://www.4gamer.net/games/405/G040593/20180717006/ 4Gamer] (JP) news article about Girls' Frontline copyright issues in Japan.</ref>