In September, the surprising news came that "Babylon's Fall," a live-service game developed by Platinum Games and published by Square Enix, would end after less than a year. The game is no longer being sold, and premium currency sales have been suspended, but the servers will remain operational until February 27, 2023.

I say this with all the sadness of a Platinum devotee, the game was a disaster. Criticisms poured in about the look and the reuse of assets from other Square Enix games, but it wasn't just the look that was the problem. In giving it a 45, the reviewer said in giving it a score of "not enough to like or dislike."

"Completely lacking.

It's yet another flop for Platinum Games, and any fan of the furious action experience must be hoping that the studio can return to its glory days. The studio's CEO, Atsushi Inaba, a developer of the highest pedigree with an impressive track record, knows that this title did not work out. But the nature of the contract between Platinum and Square Enix limits what he can say.

"The only thing we can comment on here regarding the termination of Babylon's Fall itself is that this unfortunate ending may have caused disappointment and possibly anger among our dedicated fans and players," Inaba said in a new VGC interview.

"And what may have caused disappointment to our fans is that we as developers are very sorry for the fact that we have made our dedicated fans feel that way. It is not at all pleasing to us as developers to give players feelings other than enjoyment and fun with our work."

Inaba goes on to say that the studio still intends to make live service games, and in his description of what is important about such a product, one can read between the lines to see what he thinks was wrong here.

"The first is the core game mechanics of the live service game, which are interesting, and the second is the live service itself. I think these two pillars are values that need to be strongly connected within the company and need to be seen, valued and appreciated by the same people, in the same company, on the same team"

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"Otherwise, if one is valued more than the other, or if the two are not connected, things usually don't turn out the way we want them to."

In other words, the core loop was not interesting, and there may have been some disconnect between what Platinum was trying to do and what the live service element of the game was set up to accomplish. Inaba does not mention monetization, but he certainly feels that there was a failure on the part of both Platinum and the publisher: "If we were to develop the game on our own, controlling everything, it would be 100% our fault if we failed and basically our fault if we succeeded. It would basically be our responsibility if we failed, and if we succeeded, it would be our responsibility"

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"But this 'setback' story," Inaba concludes, "should not be denied, but rather we should acknowledge the fact, clarify this consequence, move on, and use this experience for future endeavors. This is the only way to avoid feeling frustrated in the long run."

Two of Platinum's current projects are known. Bayonetta 3, which is highly anticipated by hack-and-slash fans around the world, will be exclusive to the Nintendo Switch. The first "Bayonetta" was released on PC, but unfortunately will not be ported anytime soon, as the two sequels are funded and published by Nintendo. The other is "Project G.G.," which is said to be in the spirit of director Hideki Kamiya's "Beautiful Joe" and "The Wonderful 101," but nothing solid is known. If this is a live service, I'll eat Joe's backwards baseball cap.

The fall of "Babylon's Fall" is indicative of a broader industry trend to look at big-budget games and rush toward live service, perhaps without fully understanding the development resources and time required for these games to be vaguely competitive. destiny 2" Creating a game as endlessly playable as "Destiny 2" is not as easy as it might seem. There is no doubt that Platinum is full of talent, but they have definitely bitten off more than they can chew when it comes to this one.