Babylon's Fall, the latest online hack-and-slash action RPG from Square Enix and Platinum Games, has met with a very lukewarm reception.
Released on PS5, PS4, and PC on March 3, the game seems to have struggled to attract an audience, peaking at just 650 concurrent players on Steam since launch (thanks, VGC). At press time, his PC player count is hovering at a meager 574, having dropped to a low of 66 a few hours earlier.
While player stats on PlayStation consoles aren't available, we can probably expect a similar turnout for Sony systems.
For comparison, even the struggling Battlefield 2042 has been able to consistently attract nearly 2,000 concurrent daily players, despite an exodus of fans since the bug-ridden game launched last year, and it's below the number of nine year old boy players. . Battlefield 4.
Babylon's Fall reviews don't present the game in a better light. User reviews on Steam are currently "mixed", with several players criticizing its excessive microtransactions and graphics, while others praised its dungeon-crawling gameplay loop. Even its Metacritic page remains mostly empty, with critics largely ignoring the title.
The fall of Babylon was never going to be easy. The game's launch has been overwhelmed by bigger triple-A titles in recent weeks, including Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring, which have almost single-handedly grabbed the gaming world's attention.
Its launch day was further interrupted by an unscheduled emergency maintenance period, which shut down the game's servers, primarily multiplayer, for a few hours. This left the small online community around the game expressing their disappointment.
But even before its release, Babylon's Fall had struggled to generate buzz. First revealed at E3 2018, the game was later delayed and reappeared in 2021 with a new approach to multiplayer and live service. Square Enix released a free demo for the game a week before its release, though that didn't seem to have generated much enthusiasm for the title.
Analysis: A warning shot for Square Enix and Platinum
The poor reception to Babylon's Fall may well cause Square Enix and Platinum to reconsider their approach to live games. Platinum has previously said that it wants to pursue new opportunities with "live ops" titles with the goal of "expanding into new genres and styles of play" as well as experimenting with games that can be played for longer periods of time to suit the current market.
Babylon's Fall appears to be Platinum's first experience in this area of live service, and one that didn't go as planned. The game launched with a full suite of live service features, including microtransactions, in-game currency, and a first season of additional DLC, priced at $59.99 / £59.99 / AU$99.95. The sheer content that Square Enix and Platinum have prepared for the game suggests that they envision a long and bright future for the title.
This future is in danger of being cut short. Live service titles rely on dedicated player bases that can be counted on to return for every season of DLC and gobble up every drop of new content that comes their way. The fact that the game had trouble attracting even 1000 players on launch day is hardly a vote of confidence in its favor. If Babylon's Fall can quickly inflate its player count, the business model that supports it will collapse, taking the game with it.