Given its low player count, Babylon's Fall shutting down was probably an inevitability, and that's exactly what's happening. Square Enix has announced that the live-service hack and slash RPG will cease operations in February, and that this will also mean its upcoming "large-scale updates" are also being canceled.
Why is Babylon's Fall shutting down?
Babylon's Fall's fate was probably sealed when it was revealed that the game had just one single player playing it back in May, just two months after it launched. In the official notice announcing the shutdown, no reason is given, but the game's dismal player count and negative reception are probably major factors.
Square Enix says that as well as shutting down the game on February 27th next year, all upcoming "large-scale updates" will also be canceled. Babylon's Fall Season 2 will run until November 29th as scheduled, with the "Final Season" starting after the maintenance scheduled for the same day.
In terms of what you can expect from now on, Babylon's Fall premium currency will stop being sold as of today, and sales of both the digital and physical version "will draw to a close". November 29th will bring the end of the second season and the start of the third, which will add new missions and extras up until service officially ends on February 27th.
A postmortem for Babylon's Fall
A collaboration between Square Enix and Platinum Games, Babylon's Fall was officially unveiled at E3 2018 with a rather promising teaser trailer. We didn't hear too much about the game until its closed beta test in July 2021, wherein players noticed that the game appeared to be reusing some assets from MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.
Babylon's Fall was officially released in March 2022 to what can best be described as a lukewarm reception. Despite general player apathy, Babylon's Fall's developers pledged to work on the game in order to fix it, extending the period of the second season in order to address some of the player base's most common complaints. Unfortunately, it seems like the devs' efforts didn't work in the end.
This is where I'd normally tell you where you can buy Babylon's Fall if you want to play it before it ends, but since sales are "[drawing] to a close", it's probably best not to do that. Still, players had some good times and some bad times (apparently mostly bad times) with this one, so let's hope Platinum can learn its lessons for its next inevitable attempt at live-service gaming.
