Spellbreak brought a breath of fresh air to the genre by letting you cast spells instead of fighting with firearms. Now it’s being discontinued.
In 2022, Battle Royale is still exceptionally popular. The most played games on Steam include not only PUBG, but also Apex Legends and Naraka: Bladepoint. Fortnite and CoD Warzone also continue to attract a lot of players. Besides the genre giants, however, there is obviously little room for outsiders.
The developers of Spellbreak have now had to announce that it is simply no longer worthwhile to continue working on their game. In this free Battle Royale game, you can fight each other with all kinds of spells instead of firearms. Spellbreak was pretty well received by its players, but is now to be unavailable from 2023 anyway.
Why is the game being discontinued?
On 28 June it was officially announced that the (development of Spellbreak will be discontinued and the servers will be shut down in spring 2023) . CEO Seth Sivak provides a more detailed explanation for this decision on Reddit. He says that they were delighted by the initial success and enthusiasm of the community, and it is all the more difficult to announce the end of the game:
Unfortunately, the games industry is a difficult business. Spellbreak failed to make a breakthrough and reach a sustainable state from which we could continue to invest in the game as planned. As an independent studio, we chose a difficult path and decided to compete against some of the biggest games in the world. Although we weren’t able to achieve the competitiveness we needed, I don’t regret any of the brave decisions we made to breathe life into Spellbreak. “
Update June 29 at 16:00: As has since been revealed, there is yet another reason for the game’s suspension. As the (website) Venturebeat reports, Blizzard Entertainment has bought out the studio behind Spellbreak. The team is now said to be working on World of Warcraft and the upcoming Dragonflight expansion.
Spellbreak wanted to let you experience the ultimate battle royale fantasy. How the game works can be seen in the trailer:
Dwindling player numbers
A look at SteamDB reveals more about the unsustainable state of the game. In recent months, Spellbreak has only been able to attract around 200 concurrently active players, and a slight downward trend has continued to be visible. Since Spellbreak is free to play and therefore had to finance itself primarily through the sale of cosmetic items, it comes as little surprise that such a low number of players is simply not enough.
What the fans say
Spellbreak was very well received on Steam and today stands at 86 percent positive ratings. Accordingly, regret and disappointment prevail among players. For example, VoidMain0 writes on Reddit:
☻
“In a time when Battle Royale is a dime a dozen, Spellbreak brought a breath of fresh air to the genre and I instantly fell in love with the game. Thank you for all the unique fun the game has brought “
Twitter user @NameOnCooldown sees the game’s loss as being due to fierce competition:
I mean, you guys were messing with the giants of an already oversaturated market. Cool game mechanics used in the wrong genre. I hope the next game works better.
I mean, you went up against the giants in an already heavily saturated market. Cool game mechanics used in the wrong genre. I hope the next game works out better.
– I can’t (@NameOnCooldown) June 28, 2022
On the other hand, many comments blame the behaviour of the developers for the game’s downfall. While most agree that Spellbreak itself was a great game, the developers’ lack of communication with the community ruined it. In addition, there was simply a lack of new content to keep players interested. For example, (SirEugenKaiser) writes on Reddit:
If this game hadn’t brought so much joy into my life, I would choose more drastic words:
Honestly, it’s pathetic how you guys have treated your project. You first created a real pearl, only to let it slowly die. You hardly listened to what the community wanted. […] There were long content lulls, but always new, expensive skins. […] And then you have the audacity to go on radio silence for 10 months and then pull the plug on the game? […]
For the same reasons, other players are also outraged by the sudden end of Spellbreak, sometimes in drastic words. Some state that they no longer want to support the developers in the future. There are obviously a lot of strong feelings involved here, which is why some unobjective statements are made. But the basic tenor remains: something special is being lost here.
