Square Enix’s latest RPG falls below 10 players on Steam
The recent release has not gone down well with players
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Babylon’s Fall, the latest co-op action RPG from Square Enix and Platinum Games, struggled to attract an audience when it launched last March, and has fallen below 10 concurrent players on PC for the first time.
As game-tracking siteSteamChartsshows, only eight players booted up Babylon’s Fall onSteamduring one point on April 13, marking a new low for the ailing game. As of press time, a paltry 93 people were playing, and it’s attracted an average concurrent player count of only 149 across the last 30 days.
Players have been drifting from the game since it launched at the beginning of March. Itfailed to draw an audience, peaking at only 1,188 players the day after release. Critics were not kind, either, awarding it low review scores. On Metacritic, it’s currently listed as thesecond-worst release of the yearso far and theworst-reviewed PS5 game.
Its release date did it no favors, either. Coming out shortly afterHorizon Forbidden Westand less than a week afterElden Ring, it quickly found itself in the shadow of other major triple-A releases.
Does Babylon’s Fall have a future?
Fear not, would-be fans! Square Enix has explicitly addressed the future of the game, insisting its longevity is not in danger.
“There are no plans to reduce the scale of development on Babylon’s Fall,” the game’s official Twitter account said ina statementlast month.
“Content up to the end of Season 2 is now practically complete and we have started work on Season 3 and beyond,” it continued.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
“We will continue to provide new content for the game and make improvements based on player feedback, striving to keep existing players playing and to attract newcomers.”
The publisher has also previouslyreleased a surveyasking fans how Babylon’s Fall could be improved. It paid particular attention to the game’s UI and graphics, which are deliberately styled to ape the brushwork of oil paintings. It asked players which features would encourage them to recommend the game to a friend and if they’d be more likely to do so after graphical tweaks were made.
Square Enix will likely be disappointed with the sales of Babylon’s Fall, but its meager player count also undermines the game’s live-service business model. Pitched as a multiplayer co-operative action RPG, it launched with a season of expansion content, as well as lots of microtransactions and optional purchases.
Without a large player count, it will be a struggle to get a team together to play through the additional content. And without a dedicated playerbase, future seasons of DLC likely won’t produce the return Square Enix hopes for. The publisher may have envisaged a long lifespan for Babylon’s Fall, but if the player count doesn’t increase, that may be cut short.
This isn’t the only recent triple-A release that’s struggled to maintain a functional playerbase.Battlefield 2042has seen an exodus of fans who are disappointed with its persistent glitches and slow rollout of updates. Dice’s multiplayer shooter has now fallenbelow 1,000 concurrent playerson Steam, with many moving to an indie Battlefield clone for their squad-based FPS fix.
Callum is TechRadar Gaming’s News Writer. You’ll find him whipping up stories about all the latest happenings in the gaming world, as well as penning the odd feature and review. Before coming to TechRadar, he wrote freelance for various sites, including Clash, The Telegraph, and Gamesindustry.biz, and worked as a Staff Writer at Wargamer. Strategy games and RPGs are his bread and butter, but he’ll eat anything that spins a captivating narrative. He also loves tabletop games, and will happily chew your ear off about TTRPGs and board games.
NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Saturday, November 9 (game #517)
From Dishonored to Mafia: Definitive Edition, some of my favorite games are free right now for Amazon Prime members
The 6 best electric motorcycle concepts and launches from EICMA 2024
