Struggling live-service hack-and-slash Babylon's Fall developers reaffirming their commitment to the title.
While it had ostensibly large ambitions at launch, Babylon's Fall has failed to attract a significant player base. Released in March of this year, the game was almost immediately branded as a flop due to poor initial sales and a sharp drop in player counts just after launch. Although Babylon's Fall did seem to have some promise in previews, demos, and trailers - not to mention the fact that it comes from reputable studio PlatinumGames - critics and players alike have lambasted the game for its questionable art design, convoluted narrative, and lack of variety. The live-service game was described as repetitive in Babylon's Fall reviews, and it seems that most gamers have long since moved on from the title, which had the additional misfortune of releasing in a year packed with best-selling, critically acclaimed games.
Things don't appear to have improved for this Square Enix release, as VGC reports that the Babylon's Fall's concurrent player count on Steam dropped to just one player on Wednesday, May 4. This is the lowest that the player count for the game has gotten, but it hasn't fared much better outside of May 4, as that same Steam Charts data expresses that its peak player count last week was just 77 concurrent players. Interestingly, this number is actually above the 30-day average for Babylon's Fall, which was only 64 concurrent players.
This information is certainly surprising, even though the game's shortcomings have been no secret. Babylon's Fall had a very low player count on launch day, but even releases with similarly controversial launches, like Marvel's Avengers, never dropped to just a single player in Steam Charts data. This situation is particularly bad considering the fact that Babylon's Fall is meant to be a live-service multiplayer game - a subgenre that survives on large concurrent player counts.
Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of Babylon's Fall is that the gaming world seems to have completely forgotten about it. The writing looks to be on the wall for this game, as Square Enix might wind up simply shutting its servers down and packing things up. While this would anger players who already bought the game, it's unlikely that anything short of a complete overhaul can save Babylon's Fall.
Source: Steam Charts (via VGC)
