Only one person kept the Babylon’s Fall dream alive on Steam last week

Babylon’s fall is a video game that came out this year, so just over two months ago. It was developed by PlatinumGames and published by hit purveyors Square Enix. It’s totally fine if you’ve never heard of it (or forgot it existed) up until this moment, because that seems to be true for the majority of Steam users as well.

Babylon’s Fall didn’t sell very well on any platform, but it was particularly bad on PC. On Steam, the game’s concurrent player count peaked at a meager 1,166 players at launch and has since declined. Normally, online action game has an average of 50-60 players playing every day.

However, last week – specifically on Wednesday 4th May – that simultaneous peak was only minor a. At this point, a single person was online in the game. That shocking new low was spotted by VGC, and while you can see Babylon’s Fall has since “recovered” – returning to its usual ~60 concurrent average – just one player for a game that’s barely a few weeks old is, from a major publisher and a renowned developer is certainly a rare sight.

All in all, this current situation is not surprising. Shortly after launching the game, PlatinumGames had to pledge to players and promise continued support for at least two more seasons. The contribution bore the alarming, quite meaningful title “Is the further service in danger?”.

Babylon’s Fall was particularly poorly received by critics for a PlatinumGames project. The always-online nature of the game, the Battle Pass progression system, and its structure as a live-service game with no satisfying hook also seem to have rubbed players the wrong way.