Babylon's Fall
by PlatinumGames / Square Enix
About the Game
A live-service co-op action RPG developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix. Players battle through a mysterious tower as warriors fused with demonic spirits.
Why the Developer Killed It
Season Pass Sold Before Shutdown Announcement
A season pass with future content promises was sold to players who had not yet been informed of the impending shutdown — a practice that left buyers with worthless purchases.
Near-Zero Player Count at Launch
Steam concurrent peaks rarely exceeded double digits in the weeks following launch — one of the lowest sustained player counts for a major publisher release in Steam's history.
Live-Service Model Mismatched to Product
PlatinumGames' strengths lie in tightly designed single-player action. Babylon's Fall applied a live-service grind loop to a studio that had never shipped an online game at scale.
Babylon's Fall launched in March 2022 to some of the worst launch-day numbers in recent memory for a major publisher title. On Steam, concurrent peaks were in the double digits on regular evenings — not low thousands, not hundreds. Double digits. Square Enix had published a $59.99 live-service game from the studio that made Bayonetta and NieR: Automata, and almost nobody came.
The reviews were 74% negative. Players who did purchase the game found a product that looked visually dated, featured repetitive mission design, and layered aggressive monetisation on top of a game loop that had not earned engagement. A season pass was sold, promising future content, while Square Enix internally assessed whether to continue the project.
On December 27 2022, Square Enix announced the end of service. Servers shut down on February 27 2023 — less than twelve months after launch. All game modes required an internet connection, so the shutdown ended all access for everyone who had purchased it. Babylon's Fall represents a specific type of failure: a publisher forcing a live-service model onto a studio and a product that were not built for it, then abandoning the experiment — and the players who bought into it — when the numbers came in.
Information sourced from public records, press coverage, and developer announcements.