Babylon’s Fall falling to less than 10 concurrent players on Steam shows not every game needs to be live service

April 13 was a new low

2022 has been a strange time for the gaming industry, but no single event perhaps sums it up better than what’s going on with Babylon’s Fall. The Babylon’s Fall concurrent players situation has reached a new low, as SteamCharts alleges that under 10 people (eight, to be exact) were playing the game concurrently on Steam on April 13.

It’s not like it had much room to grow. Various charts put it at just above 1,000 concurrents even at launch, the height of the game’s hype cycle: with an average of 509 concurrent players in the last 30 days. There was so much uproar that the development team had to even put out a statement saying that “continuing service was not in danger,” noting that “there are no plans to reduce the scale of development.” It is not clear how the new Babylon’s Fall concurrent players low impacts that.

It’s wild to see a Platinum project end up like this, but anyone who played the beta this past August isn’t surprised. The beta was rough on multiple levels (mechanically and aesthetically), and it was hard to believe that Babylon’s Fall would launch just a few short months later in March 2022. It was a clear case of needing to go back to the drawing board, but instead, it shipped.

I don’t see this getting the “Realm Reborn treatment” either; but maybe the best we can hope for (or at least, current players can hope for) is small improvements over time. It is a “seasonal” game after all, and in the below tweet, it was confirmed that “content up to the end of season 2 is practically complete,” and work has begun on “season 3 and beyond.”

Given how seasonal games are generally six months to a year ahead of the curve, that makes sense. Hopefully it’s not just more of the same, and hopefully the live service model eventually goes away as the game is sunset, with all the improvements in tow: maybe then it can at least have a legacy for Platinum and Square Enix alike.

Chris Carter

Reviews Director, Co-EIC – Chris has been enjoying Destructoid avidly since 2008. He finally decided to take the next step, make an account, and start blogging in January of 2009. Now, he’s staff!