Square Enix has announced that it will drop support for the cooperative multiplayer role-playing game Babylon's Fall, with the beleaguered game shutting down for good just one year after its release.
Babylon's Fall had trouble attracting an audience when it released in March earlier this year, falling below a paltry 10 players on Steam just weeks after release. In a blog post - opens in a new tab, Square Enix announced that it will stop digital and physical sales of the title starting today (September 13) and will end the game on February 28, 2023.
After this point, Babylon's Fall will no longer be available to play, even if you have already purchased the game. All game data will be deleted and all in-game coins and purchases will be inaccessible.
doomed from the start
Square Enix also said it has canceled several large-scale updates it had in the works, but will continue to release a schedule of new content and a final season before the game is permanently offline. Even these, Square Enix clarified, are "subject to change without notice."
“As far as the plan going forward, Season 2 will run until Tuesday, November 29, 2022 as scheduled, with the final season kicking off with scheduled maintenance on the same day,” Square Enix said. “This final season is when you can earn the ranking rewards from Season 2.
"To express our gratitude to all our players, we plan to implement as many events and other initiatives as possible, until the end of the service."
Square Enix said in a statement in March that it had "no plans to scale down Babylon's Fall's development" after the game's initial sales and player base failed to take off. He had already started work on Season 3, which now appears to be the game's final season update, but wanted to "bring new content to the game and make improvements" to attract new players.
Co-developed with PlatinumGames, Babylon's Fall was Square Enix's latest experiment in live streaming services. The game launched with a full set of microtransactions, in-game currency, and a schedule of seasonal updates, as the developers prepared to support the game for years to come. All this planning and development now seems rather premature.
Its ending is also a blow to the few players who have enjoyed the game so far. This will be particularly upsetting to those who paid $59.99 / £59.99 / AU$99.95 to purchase Babylon's Fall at full retail price, but won't be able to play any part of the game come February of next year. .
However, its closure probably doesn't come as a surprise. Live service games depend on large, dedicated communities for their longevity, as loyal fans return for seasonal content updates to keep the game going for years to come. Without a pool of players behind the game, the business model behind Babylon's Fall seemed to have crumbled just weeks after release. Square Enix couldn't even achieve the modest change that Battlefield 2042 enjoyed after its first season.