Square Enix and Platinum Games confirmed today what had been widely expected from the start: that Babylon’s Fall will be cancelled before the end of its first year. Even though I shouldn’t be shocked, it’s still annoying. People forked over $60 for this game less than six months ago, and now, despite assurances to the contrary, it won’t even launch.
Despite its many flaws, the frenzied dungeon crawler Babylon’s Fall (with its European oil painting art style) did have its supporters. Some people bought it even though it was widely considered to be one of the worst games of 2022 because of its extravagant treasure hunt at the game’s conclusion. They have till the end of the month of February in 2023 to maintain this practice. Tuesday, as announced in a new article on Babylon’s Fall website, is the last day players will be able to access the constantly online action RPG. The game’s single-player mode will be discontinued even though cooperative dungeon crawls were its primary draw.
There will be no further updates or support for the game after February 27, 2023, the developers wrote. As the service comes to an end, “we want to conduct as many events and other activities as we can to demonstrate our gratitude to all our gamers.”
It has been decided to immediately end the sale of Babylon’s Fall’s premium in-game currency, and all major content upgrades for the game will no longer be implemented. Season two will continue as scheduled through the end of November, but there will be no Season three to follow it; instead, players will have the opportunity to re-earn Season two’s ranking awards.
That you won’t be allowed to play the game after Monday, February 27, 2023, at 11:00 p.m. (PT) is confirmed in the announcement. “After the service is terminated, all game data stored on the game servers will be removed.”
The makers of Babylon’s Fall assured the player base that despite the game’s negative reaction and declining player count, they had no intention of cancelling the game’s live operation. Upon its initial release, the developers stated emphatically that no further scaled-back development of Babylon’s Fall was in the works.
A short two months later, in May, the message shifted. After realising that less than a dozen people were playing Babylon’s Fall at any given time on Steam, the developers decided to “re-evaluate” their intentions for future development. It seemed like a significant reworking of the game’s foundational elements was out of the question. This could mean that there won’t be any more substantial crossover content updates like Nier Automata’s. Even if only a small number of players remained on PC and console, it was the least Square Enix could do to keep the lights on for them. Actually, it seems not.
This whole fiasco is reminiscent of Anthem, another misguided attempt by a stellar development team to cash in on the lucrative subscription-based video game market. Despite being a superior game to Babylon’s Fall in many respects, BioWare’s Ironman-inspired loot shooter fell over a cliff when it came to delivering a fully realised experience, much alone significantly expanding upon it in the months and weeks following its initial release. At first, it seemed like BioWare was committed for the long run, too, but EA ultimately scrapped those plans. In contrast to the events of Babylon’s Fall, Anthem’s servers are still functioning normally many years later.
In April, one player said on Babylon’s Fall Steam forum, “The ‘always online’ requirement is deterring me from buying this game.” A day will come when the servers are no longer available, rendering a costly game useless. I would have purchased it sooner if it supported offline use. With such a small population, it’s unlikely that the servers will live more than a year or two. It’s one thing to take away the ability to play offline from a free game, but anything that costs $60 or more should never do that.
While sales are likely to “come to a conclusion” in the future, Babylon’s Fall is still available for purchase on the PlayStation and Xbox storefronts for that price.
