PlatinumGames wants to make more live service software – doesn’t everyone right now? – but it’s going to have to do better than Babylon’s Fall, which is off to a pathetic start. We’re still putting together our review – look out for that soon – but early indications are awful for the Square Enix published hack-and-slash.
For example, on PC storefront Steam it peaked with about 650 concurrent players. As a comparison, God of War – which launched all the way back in January, and isn’t a live service game – peaked at just over 5,000 players today. Okay, it’s not necessarily fair to compare a massive, established name like God of War to Babylon’s Fall – but we’re just trying to put things into perspective.
It’s unlikely to get any better either, because this long-in-development effort looks rubbish. In an attempt to drum up some enthusiasm, Square Enix paid a bunch of popular streamers to play the game, which is a relatively normal practice for publishers to do these days. Unfortunately, we don’t think the investment has paid off in quite the way it anticipated, as clips like this demonstrate:
So, yes, Babylon’s Fall – a game filled with presumptuous Battle Passes and recurring gameplay loops, with very few people ever likely to engage with them. Making live service games is notoriously difficult, so perhaps we shouldn’t go too hard on PlatinumGames here. Still, this one has been in development for an eternity – one has to wonder whether it’ll ever make back its development costs.
