Well, that didn't last long. The Witcher: Monster Slayer, a location-based AR mobile action RPG where players could take on the role of a Witcher and fight beasts and earn trophies, is shutting down. It's happening in two stages: the game is being taken off the Google Play and Apple App Store on January 31st, with in-game purchases also being shut down on the same day. There also won't be any new content starting today. Then, on June 30th, the game will go offline forever.
Considering the game only launched just under a year and a half ago, it's pretty easy to conclude that something went catastrophically wrong. A quick glance at the user reviews paint a bleak tale, as it currently has a 3/5 rating out of 73.6k reviews on the Google Play Store, which definitely isn't ideal. One upvoted review stated that it "doesn't feel like you're progressing at all", which makes it sound as though the game wasn't doing a good job at maintaining a userbase.
While 100 million monsters were defeated worldwide, that doesn't really mean anything in the long run. It's a big number, but with enough people anything is possible, and it clearly wasn't enough, or else this game wouldn't be shutting down. You have to wonder when (not if) another Witcher game will come to mobile, given that it's such a massive franchise. Maybe when the next wave of Witcher games arrive in the mid-2020s? We'll have to see.
Interestingly, it's not all bad news if you're a Spokko developer that had been working on The Witcher: Monster Slayer. Here's what CD Projekt Red has to say about what's happening to Spokko in future.
Moving forward, we plan to roll Spokko into CD PROJEKT RED, with a part of its staff given the opportunity to join core CD PROJEKT development projects. During this transition, there will be some staff members who will, unfortunately, be let go — however, we will do our best to support all of our employees affected by this situation and ensure the transition to the next step in their careers is as easy and safe as possible.
So, while the game itself is going down, which is undoubtedly a bummer for the staff and those who are still playing it, at least some of the developers involved are going to be landing on their feet. Best of luck to all those involved.
For more information on CD Projekt Red and their many in-development projects, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
