Stepping into Linkon City for the first time can feel overwhelming between the combat system, the card gacha, and five very charming men all competing for your attention. This Love and Deepspace Beginners guide breaks down everything a new Hunter actually needs to know, from how the Evol combat system really works to which currency you should never accidentally spend. Let’s jump right into it!
What Type of Game Is Love and Deepspace?
Love and Deepspace is a 3D otome romance game built around real-time action combat rather than static visual novel choices alone. You play as a newly inaugurated Deepspace Hunter living in Linkon City, a technologically advanced metropolis with a dark past. It’s still recovering from the Chronorift Catastrophe, an event that occurred 14 years before the story begins and tore open a rift that let hostile alien creatures called Wanderers into your world.
Everyone in this world has access to a special power called Evol. Yours is unique: Resonance, which lets you amplify other people’s Evol abilities and perform combined attacks with your partner in battle. That single mechanic is the reason combat in this game feels so different from a typical dating sim. You are not just picking dialogue options, you are actively fighting alongside the person you are falling for.
P.S: If you’re a beginner to L&D, you should brush up on some of the best memory cards to collect in our Love and Deepspace tier list.
Love and Deepspace – Meet Your Love Interests
As of the most recent update, there are five romanceable men in Love and Deepspace, each tied to their own Evol power and combat style.
Xavier is a fellow Deepspace Hunter and your co-worker, using the Light Evol. He is a little reserved on the surface but genuinely affectionate once you get past that. His combat style is versatile and forgiving, which makes him the most commonly recommended starting route for brand new players.
Zayne is your childhood friend turned cardiac surgeon, wielding the Ice Evol. Serious, disciplined, and endlessly dependable, Zayne leans into a slow burn romance and offers some of the strongest crowd control and defensive tools in combat.
Rafayel is a fire wielding artist and one of the last Lemurians, an ancient race tied to the ocean. Playful and a little chaotic on the surface, his story carries some of the deepest lore in the entire game.
Sylus joined the cast in the version 2.0 “Opposing Visions” update. He leads an organization called Onychinus out of the crime ridden N109 Zone, and he starts out as an antagonist before becoming a full romance route. Confident, calculating, and not entirely human, Sylus is the pick for players who want a darker, more intense dynamic.
Caleb rounds out the cast, added as a romanceable character in the version 3.0 “Cosmic Encounter” update after first appearing as a non-playable character earlier in the story. He is your adopted older brother figure with the Gravity Evol, and his route carries a very different emotional weight than the others given that history.
Worth knowing if you have been out of the loop: a sixth love interest named “Valko” was actually announced for the version 6.0 update in June 2026. Strong backlash from the community, particularly from Chinese players, led the developers to cancel him just eight days later, and Papergames has since stated no further love interests are currently planned. If you see older content mentioning a sixth route, that is why it never happened.
Understanding Combat in Love and Deepspace
Combat plays out in real time from a third person perspective, and it is genuinely more involved than most people expect from an otome game. You will dash to dodge incoming attacks, land normal attacks, and use two distinct skill types during a fight.
Your Active Skill depends entirely on which weapon you currently have equipped. You start with handguns, but as you progress you unlock swords, claymores, and staffs, each with a different playstyle and Active Skill behavior.
Your Resonance Skill depends on which partner you are currently paired with in battle. This is the mechanic tied directly to your own Resonance Evol, and it is what makes your chosen love interest an active combat participant rather than a background character.
Every character also has a Support Skill, an Ardent Oath ultimate, and a Passive Skill that all come into play depending on your team setup. Getting comfortable with dodge timing and combo chaining early will save you a lot of frustration once story difficulty ramps up.
Memory Cards and the Wish System
Memory Cards are the gacha collectible at the heart of Love and Deepspace, pulled through a system the game calls Wishes. Each card represents a specific scene or memory with one of your love interests and grants combat stats alongside its romantic content.
Cards come in three rarity tiers: 5-star (also called SSR or Mythic), 4-star (SR), and 3-star and below. 5-star cards carry the best stats and the most significant story scenes, and they are also what the game uses to set the recommended minimum level for tougher content, since 4-star cards are simply weaker and require serious over-leveling to compensate.
Cards are also organized by a Stellactrum color system. Each character has a main color, a support color, and a secondary color, and matching your card colors to a character’s Stellactrum is what actually maximizes your damage output. Xavier, for example, favors green as his main color with yellow and red as secondary. Zayne runs blue as his main color with red and pink behind it. Building a color coordinated deck around whichever character you are focusing on matters far more than just pulling the shiniest looking card.
Cards are further split into Sun and Moon types. Sun pairs give you bonus stats when matched correctly, while Moon cards tend to be more flexible for general use. When you are deciding what to level first, prioritizing your best Sun pair for your main character usually pays off faster than spreading resources evenly.
Love and Deepspace Currencies Explained
New players consistently get tripped up by how many currencies this game throws at you, so here is the breakdown:
- Stamina is represented by a blue lightning icon and is the resource that gates almost everything meaningful in the game, including leveling up your Memory Cards. This is genuinely the currency to protect most carefully, more so than either premium currency, since running out of Stamina stalls your entire account’s progress.
- Gold covers basic upgrades and everyday purchases.
- Diamonds, shown with a red diamond icon, are used for Wishes and general premium content.
- Crystals, shown with a purple diamond icon, are the currency you get from real money top ups. One Crystal converts directly to one Diamond, so functionally they behave the same once converted, the difference is purely in how you obtained them.
If you do decide to spend, the discounted Wish packs in the shop consistently offer better value than converting Crystals straight to Diamonds, since the packs usually throw in bonus leveling materials on top. Work through the lower cost packs first, since the value per dollar drops noticeably once you move up to the more expensive bundles.
Building Affinity With Your Love Interest
Every interaction in Love and Deepspace, from unlocking a new Memory Card to sending a text back and forth in the in-game chat, feeds into your affinity level with each character. Unlocking a new 5-star card grants a substantial affinity boost on its own, and upgrading existing cards adds even more on top. Activities like video calls and Relax Time interactions also trigger extra affinity gains beyond just combat progression.
Raising affinity unlocks new story events, exclusive voice lines, and eventually stronger in-combat synergy with that character. If you know which route you want to focus on early, keep your interactions consistent with that character rather than splitting your attention evenly across all five.
What to Do As A New Player in Love and Deepspace?
Beyond the main story, several repeatable game modes exist specifically to build up your account:
- Bounty Hunt rewards ascension materials for your Memory Cards.
- Deepspace Trial is a progressively harder combat gauntlet that tests how well built your cards actually are.
- Core Hunt rewards Protocores, the crafting material harvested from defeated Wanderers that powers most of the game’s advanced upgrades.
- Hunter Contest, including the beginner focused Junior Hunter Contest, is a challenging dungeon mode where bringing the right color coordinated cards matters enormously. A good rule of thumb for the Junior Hunter Contest specifically is packing 3 to 5 cards matching your character’s main color plus at least one secondary color card for later rounds.
- Training Room exists purely to teach you combat mechanics in a low pressure setting, and it is worth revisiting any time a new weapon type or skill system gets introduced.
Love and Deepspace Beginner Tips
A handful of practical Love and Deepspace new player tips that make the first few weeks noticeably smoother:
- Do not let your Stamina cap out and go to waste. Since it gates card leveling, letting Energy Capsules sit unused is one of the most common regrets new players report once they understand how central it is to progression.
- Focus on one character’s route before spreading yourself across all five. Building a color coordinated deck for a single love interest gets you through early content faster than a scattered collection of off-color cards.
- Prioritize 5-star Sun pairs for whichever character you are focusing on, and treat 4-star cards as selective fill-ins rather than a leveling priority.
- Complete daily login rewards and check the event tab regularly. Time limited events reliably hand out free Diamonds, leveling materials, and the occasional 4-star Memory Card just for participating, even if you cannot finish every objective.
- If you plan to spend any real money, work through the discounted Wish packs before considering a direct Crystal to Diamond conversion, since the packs almost always include bonus materials that stretch your spending further.
