Babylon's Fall

PlatinumGames' live-service game, down to one player on Steam within months

Shut down
19902026

Babylon's Fall was a co-operative action game from PlatinumGames and Square Enix, announced at E3 2018 and released on 3 March 2022 as a live-service loot game. Its Steam player count fell from a few hundred at launch to one within three months, the lowest ever recorded for a game from a major publisher. Square Enix announced the shutdown in September 2022 and closed the servers on 28 February 2023, 362 days after launch.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2018
  2. 11 June 2018 Feature
    Announced at E3

    A new PlatinumGames action game for Square Enix.

  3. 2022
  4. 3 March 2022 Launch
    Babylon's Fall releases

    A week after Elden Ring; about 650 players on Steam at peak.

  5. 10 May 2022 Decline
    One player

    The lowest concurrent count ever seen for a major publisher's game.

  6. 13 September 2022 Shutdown announced
    Square Enix announces the end

    Sales stop; servers to close on 28 February 2023.

  7. 2023
  8. 28 February 2023 Shutdown
    Servers close

    362 days after launch; the game becomes unplayable.

The site through time

Browse square-enix-games.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2022 2023 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

PlatinumGames / Square Enix 2018–2023 Founded Developed by PlatinumGames in Osaka, published by Square Enix

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Babylon's Fall launched to poor reviews and a Steam peak of about 650 players, fell to single digits within weeks and to a single concurrent player on one day in May 2022. On 13 September 2022 Square Enix announced that Season 2 would be the last and that the servers would close on 28 February 2023, less than a year after launch, with all sales halted immediately.

Our analysis: PlatinumGames is famous for fast, single-player action; Babylon's Fall asked its fans to grind a live-service loot game with drab art and gear borrowed from Final Fantasy XIV, and released it a week after Elden Ring. Nobody it was made for wanted it, and Square Enix, then shedding studios and doubling down on other bets, did not wait around to find out whether it could be fixed.

History [edit]

Platinum goes live service

Babylon's Fall was announced at Square Enix's E3 2018 showcase as a new PlatinumGames action title, the studio behind Bayonetta and Nier: Automata. What eventually surfaced in 2021 was different from what fans had imagined: a four-player online hack-and-slash climbing a tower, with loot tiers, seasons, a battle pass and a painterly "oil painting" filter that made everything look smeared. Beta players complained about the visuals and the grind; Platinum adjusted the filter, and Square Enix shipped it anyway on 3 March 2022, a week after Elden Ring.

One player

Reviews were poor. On Steam the game peaked at about 650 concurrent players on launch weekend and lost almost all of them within days. By May a tracker recorded a moment with a single player online, a figure that made headlines as the lowest ever seen for a full-price game from a publisher of Square Enix's size. Console numbers were never disclosed but were assumed to be similar. Season 2 arrived in July to no measurable effect.

362 days

On 13 September 2022 Square Enix announced that Babylon's Fall would end service on 28 February 2023: sales stopped that day, the planned Season 3 was scrapped, in-game currency purchases were disabled and refunds were offered for unused currency. The servers closed on schedule, 362 days after launch, and because the game was online-only it became unplayable. Square Enix later cited the failure among the reasons for restructuring its game business; PlatinumGames returned to single-player projects.

The domain today

square-enix-games.com is Square Enix's; the Babylon's Fall pages carry the end-of-service notice.

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Sources [edit]

  1. PlatinumGames announces Babylon's Fall at E3 2018 The Verge 11 June 2018 [archived]
  2. Babylon's Fall review IGN 8 March 2022 [archived]
  3. Babylon's Fall's concurrent PC player count fell to just one this week Eurogamer 11 May 2022 [archived]
  4. Babylon's Fall binned after less than a year Eurogamer 13 September 2022 [archived]
  5. Babylon's Fall shut down in February 2023 IGN 28 February 2023 [archived]

Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).