Square Enix is finally shutting down its biggest disaster of the year

Date:
Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:00:28 +0000

Description:
Multiplayer RPG Babylon's Fall will be terminated only a year after its release.

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Square Enix has announced its ending support for co-op multiplayer RPG Babylons Fall, with the beleaguered game set to permanently shut down only a year after release.

Babylons Fall struggled to attract an audience when it launched in March earlier this year, and dropped below a measly 10 players on Steam only weeks after release. In a blog post , Square Enix announced it will stop digital
and physical sales of the title from today (September 13), and will terminate the game on February 28, 2023.

After that point, Babylons Fall will no longer be available to play, even if you previously purchased the game. All gameplay data will be deleted, and all in-game currency and purchases will be made inaccessible. Doomed from the start (Image credit: Square Enix)

Square Enix also said it has canceled several large-scale updates it had in the pipeline, but will continue to release a schedule of new content and a final season before the game goes permanently offline. Even these, Square
Enix clarified, are subject to change without prior notice.

In terms of the plan moving forward, Season 2 will run until Tuesday, 29 November 2022 as scheduled, and the Final Season will begin with the maintenance scheduled on the same day, said Square Enix. This Final Season is the period during which you can earn the ranking rewards of Season 2.

As a way of expressing our gratitude to all our players, we plan to implement as many events and other initiatives as we can, leading up to the end of the service.

Square Enix had said in a statement back in March that it had no plans to reduce the scale of development of Babylons Fall, after the games initial sales and playerbase failed to take off. It had already started work on
Season 3 which now looks to be the games final seasonal update but wanted
to provide new content for the game and make improvements to attract new players. (Image credit: Square Enix)

Co-developed with PlatinumGames, Babylons Fall was Square Enixs latest experiment in the live service field. The game launched with a full suite of microtransactions, an in-game currency, and a schedule of seasonal updates,
as the developers prepared to support the game for years to come. All that planning and development now look rather premature.

Its termination is also a big blow to those, admittedly few, players who have enjoyed the game up to this point. Itll be especially aggravating to those
who dished out $59.99 / 59.99 / AU$99.95 to buy Babylons Fall at its full retail price, but wont be able to play any portion of the game come February next year.

Its closure likely comes as little surprise, however. Live service games rely on large, dedicated communities for their longevity, as loyal fans return for seasonal content updates to support the game for years to come. Without a
well of players behind the game, the business model underpinning Babylons
Fall looked to have collapsed only weeks after launch. Square Enix hasnt been able to pull off even the modest turnaround that Battlefield 2042 has enjoyed after its first season . Nintendo Switch successor should go big on this one feature, says former president



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/square-enix-is-finally-shutting-down-its-bigges t-disaster-of-the-year/


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