It seems that Square Enix's latest 3D-platformer Balan Wonderworld can't catch a break lately. While fans were excited to see Sonic the Hedgehog and Nights Into Dreams creator Yuji Naka bring a brand-new IP to the table alongside former Sonic character artist Naoto Ohshima, many became skeptical of Balan Wonderworld as soon as its demo was released digitally, which featured bugs, frequent pop-in, and poor performance overall.
As the game officially released just a few weeks ago, fans were disappointed to see that not much had changed since the pre-release demo. Balan Wonderworld was instantly panned by critics, followed by incredibly poor sales, and even accusations of plagiarism. Now, it seems like the game's demo will be officially removed by Square Enix from digital storefronts soon.
Over on Twitter, the official Japanese Balan Wonderworld account announced yesterday that the digital demo for the game will be removed from all digital storefronts soon. On PS4/PS5, Switch, and Xbox One/Xbox Series S/X, the demo was removed today, April 14, at 11:59 pm Japanese Standard Time. However, the Steam version of the demo was removed a few hours ago on April 15 at 2:00 am JST.
No reason was given by either Square Enix or the official Balan Wonderworld Twitter account for the demo's removal, but fans on Twitter suspect it to simply be a result of the game's poor sales. It was also not clarified as to whether fans who have already downloaded the demo ahead of its removal will still be able to access it later on. Players who downloaded and played the Balan Wonderworld demo were able to earn a special commemorative costume in the full game. However, with the demo being taken down, it's unclear what will become of the costume.
For the time being, Square Enix says that they will disclose information on how the special costume can be obtained by players without the demo later on in the future. Upon Balan Wonderworld's official release, the game received a day-one patch meant to address player feedback from the demo, as well as a fix to special effects which were reported to put some at risk of epileptic seizures.
Aside from sales and gameplay troubles, Balan Wonderworld has also been the subject of an interesting case of positive review bombing, where fans discovered that it seemed bots were leaving overwhelmingly positive reviews of the game on Metacritic, despite it being very poorly received by fans and critics alike. While Square Enix could be removing the Balan Wonderworld demo in an effort to distance itself from the game, it will be interesting to see if it receives any more updates in the future.
Balan Wonderworld is available now for PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.