PlatinumGames Appears to Be Hiring for an Online Action Game Despite Babylon’s Fall Spectacular Failure
Japanese developer PlatinumGames went through a rough patch with the launch of Babylon’s Fall. The game published by Square Enix was the studio’s first attempt at a live service title and it failed spectacularly, to say the least.
Despite a potentially intriguing setting, the execution was severely lacking, leading to poor critic reviews and extremely low player numbers. Francesco De Meo opined that a lot of the problems had to do with monetization:
Where the monetization, Battle Passes, and GaaS features have impacted the game the most, in my opinion, is where it mattered the most in a PlatinumGames action title: combat mechanics. At the end of the main campaign, it becomes possible to change each weapon’s attack mode to Power and Technical Mode, with the latter essentially making the game feel more in line with other, better games by PlatinumGames. Additional mechanics unlocked during the campaign itself, such as elemental attacks and properties and the Gideon Coffin mechanics, also make combat considerably more fun than at the start of the campaign. Later quests also feature a much better design, with different traps, light platforming, and more varied combat scenarios. Also, the endgame, although not much different in terms of game flow from the main campaign, is considerably more fun than the base campaign, and it is much easier to find players for stuff like Sieges and so on, better executing the multiplayer action game premise of the experience.
The problem is that it is clear that all these features and mechanics have been held back on purpose only to retain players and potentially make them buy future Battle Passes and premium currency. If the best-designed quests and advanced game mechanics would have been made available earlier, would the game have been received slightly better? I definitely think so. The game wouldn’t have scored 7s or 8s all around, no question about it, but more reasonable 5s and 6s.
Babylon’s Fall live servers went down for good on February 27, 2023, less than a year after the game’s launch. However, the Japanese developer still plans to work in the live service genre. As first spotted by TechGamers, they are recruiting a Game Designer whose desired skills must include ‘Experience working on online action game development’ and ‘Experience in level design for online or open field games’. Of course, it is possible that the studio would use Babylon’s Fall learnings to make a much better live service product this time. At this stage, it is unclear whether this will be self-published or not.
Meanwhile, PlatinumGames is working with Team Ninja on the single player action game Ninja Gaiden 4, which will be released later this year on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.
