5 Games That Lost Their Playerbase Within Weeks

If a video game should strive for anything, it should be to keep its playerbase relevant in the years following its release. It's rare, though, that one will survive long enough to celebrate its first anniversary; and many will often fail to keep the spark alive long enough to see even the first month through. This is, of course, a gamble that many developers are willing to take, and it's usually only the strongest that wind up prevailing over the bitterness of failure.

To our surprise, many live-service games have crashed and burned over the last two decades. Some of these, although initially boasting a wide range of replayable elements, eventually succumbed to the pressures of trying to stay relevant in a market that is undeniably cutthroat. Just take these five, for example. If you want to know what goes into prepping a lead anchor for launch, then be sure to take a note out of these books. Take it, and then, you know, cross it out.

5. Realm Royale

In an attempt to capitalize on the immensely popular Fortnite phenomenon, Heroic Leap Games looked to develop something new and exciting. This of course led to the founding of Realm Royale, an all-round explosive third-person battle royale brawler. And to be fair, in the days following its launch, the game was shaping up to be quite the contender. Unfortunately, though, it was short-lived, and the game ended up losing a good 95% of its playerbase in just four weeks.

What started out as a good 100,000 concurrent players in June 2018 somehow ended up with only a pittance in later months. Due to the pressure of trying to forever one-up the kingpin of battle royale games and always failing to do so, Realm Royale eventually caved, and so came its brief moment in the spotlight. By August 2018, the game was lucky to pull in 5,000 users, causing the platform to slowly fade to black before year's end.

4. Pokémon GO

To make it clear, Pokémon GO isn't a bad game. It is, however, something of a fad, and it most definitely passed its time in the spotlight way back in 2016, merely months after its initial release. Prior to its rapid decline in popularity, though, the game was raking in upwards of a hundred million players worldwide, all of whom would spend countless hours searching every crag and crevice of their neighborhoods for obtainable Pokémon.

Of course, it was only natural that the novelty factor, at least for most, would eventually wear off and ring the death knell for the mobile chapter. And it did, with a good 80% of its starting players abandoning the ship by the end of 2016. That said, the game still employs a fair few million users today, all of whom are more than happy to go digging up their backyards for “one more” Pokémon to add to their collections. And so, it isn't necessarily a commercial failure, but more a generic fad that lost its sense of direction shortly after coming to light.

3. For Honor

In a bid to redeem themselves after the god-awful release of The Division, Ubisoft looked to erect For Honor, a melee-driven third-person brawler with a harsh focus on its online multiplayer mode. To help raise its hype before going live, the team released a Beta version, which saw a huge influx of players in just a few short weeks. The problem, however, was that it was littered with game-breaking bugs and mechanical errors. And it was because of this plethora of errors, that streamers weren't overly keen to invest in the day-one edition.

For Honor started out with a rough 71,000 players while in its Beta phase. Following the cascade of negative critiques from both Twitch streamers and viewers, this quickly led to the full release failing to make ends meet, with the game only peaking at 45,000 concurrent players on Steam during its first week. Unfortunately for Ubisoft, this never really picked up, and the game was officially branded a commercial failure before it ever really established a sturdy playerbase.

2. No Man's Sky

Hello Games' breathtakingly beautiful open world sci-fi chapter was once the brunt of a pretty bad joke. Hard to believe in this day and age, what with the game now harboring a sturdier playerbase than it did following its 2016 launch. But the fact is, No Man's Sky was a pretty bad game back then, and it didn't help that it was unintentionally hollow and without any sense of direction whatsoever.

Of course, any game that boasts 18 quintillion planets is sure to garner a few eyes. And it did. In fact, 212,000 players logged in to see what the fuss was all about following its launch. After seeing how repetitive and laughably mundane it was, though, this figure eventually declined to a rather underwhelming 1,000 after a matter of weeks. And although the game has since redeemed itself by adding a whole bunch of quality expansions, the fact is, Hello Games will never be able to escape its mismatched past.

1. Rocket Arena

Another blatant cash grab that was only ever conceived to make money off the back of Fortnite was Rocket Arena, a third-person battle royale game with one too many references to Epic Games' universally acclaimed iteration. To call it a copycat would only be an understatement, which is partly the reason why it went on to receive quite a lot of hate from fans of the source. Those that did stick around, however, only held their position for a few short weeks, before ultimately jumping ship and leaving the would-be Fortnite killer to capsize beneath its own vanity.

Of course, Rocket Arena did have its own originalities that set it apart from Fortnite. The problem, however, was that it just didn't do enough to make players want to invest in it. It was something of a bore, and it lacked the depth to stay relevant in the days following its release. And unfortunately, this led to the studio abandoning it just ten days later, with the developers themselves saying the game was “dead.”

So, what's your take? Are you surprised to see any of the above five on this list? Let us know over on our socials here or down in the comments below.