Babylon’s Fall wasn’t a good game by most accounts: We gave the co-op action-RPG 45% in our review, the best we were able to gather on Steam was 482 “mostly negative” users It was a review… Still, its final update is heartbreaking.
Just six months after Babylon’s Fall came out, developer Platinum Games (usually one of our favorites) has canceled plans for a major update, prompting many “enthusiastic messages of support.” announced that it would not be able to maintain the live service despite receiving play games online.
“Despite everyone’s support, we are extremely disappointed and sorry that we will not be able to continue the service of the game,” the studio wrote.
That was last September, when the $60 game went on sale at the same time, but owners were able to play it until it completely shut down earlier this week. Babylon’s Fall no longer appears in Steam Search, steam page (opens in new tab) is still accessible and I found the saddest thing is Post patch notes I have read so far:
Version 1.4.0 Patch Notes
This must be the worst update the game has ever received, right? However, the “game is dead forever” feature introduced in version 1.4.0 may be rolled back in version 1.4.1 I think there is. You can always hope, but in vain, but I don’t know if anyone will. On average, only about 4 people were playing Babylon’s Fall at any given time in the last month. Concurrency numbers peaked at 31 players on Monday, just before the shutdown.
Whether you have many players or no players, it’s still a shame when one of these online-only service games becomes permanently unplayable. The possibility of death, implied by the term “live service,” has become one of the key themes in gaming over the past five years. Anthem, Artifact, Marvel’s Avengers, and his entire live-service platform, Stadia, are his one of gaming’s most prominent casualties. the times so far.
Platinum Games CEO Atsushi Inaba spoke a bit about last year’s Babylon’s Fall failure, and in somewhat vague terms there was a mismatch between the mechanics of the game and aspects of the live service.
“As a developer, it’s just not nice to have our work provide players with feelings other than fun and enjoyment,” he said.
Of course, when it works, it works. Destiny 2, one of his games that inspired this live service gold rush after its release in 2017, got its seventh expansion.
