The LittleBigPlanet servers have been down for over a month, in one of the more unprecedented set of online technical issues in recent gaming memory. Fans are patiently waiting to be able to play the LittleBigPlanet games to their full extent, but unfortunately, no fix appears to be in sight at this point.
Around the second week of March, the servers of LittleBigPlanet were shut down reportedly due to a DDoS attack (Distributed Denial-of-Service). A tweet was sent out specifically on March 12 from the official LittleBigPlanet Twitter account letting fans know that servers were down while the team investigated the issue. Over six weeks later, the servers are still down.
After the initial shutdown, it became a surprise to learn that the servers were still down for LittleBigPlanet days afterward. This is when it started to become clear that the issue was not a surface-level one. Because of this, the LittleBigPlanet team has continued to update fans every couple of weeks, letting them know that progress is being made and that it is thankful for the patience of the fans.
Neither Sony nor Media Molecule has confirmed that the server shutdown has been because of a DDoS attack; instead, they have simply been calling it "technical" and "server" issues. However, there have been unconfirmed reports that an upset fan orchestrated the attack thanks to the series shifting away from its original design. There are plenty of people who enjoy the "new" LittleBigPlanet, as even Ariana Grande has praised Sackboy: A Big Adventure, but it is true that the original 2008 game is very different than what players are experiencing today in the series.
One of the things that is very encouraging about the ongoing updates is the comment section. While often a place of vitriol and ugliness online, fans of LittleBigPlanet are very grateful for the hard work of the team and patient as it works on fixing the servers. Many of the commenters are thankful for the updates that have been provided and are simply looking forward to enjoying some Sackboy fun once the servers are up and running again.
Even if fans are in a forgiving mood, the hope is that the LittleBigPlanet servers are up and running sooner rather than later. This six-week stretch is quite remarkable. While nowhere near as high-profile as PSN being down in 2011, that was offline for 23 days and the entire gaming world was staring at its collective watches to count the seconds. Even if LittleBigPlanet is not an entire video game console network, for the sake of those who love the games, the sooner it is running the better.
LittleBigPlanet 3 is available now on PS3 and PS4.