While the basic premise of everyone vs. everyone goes back a far way, the success of PUBG: Battlegrounds and Fortnite: Battle Royale set the course for the modern battle royale genre. Their success triggered a wave of competitors over the following years. This includes 2020’s Spellbreak, a free-to-play battle royale that attempted to insert a fantasy setting into the popular subgenre.
Unfortunately, that unique twist and some positive reviews weren’t enough to achieve financial success. As a result, developer Proletariat announced its plans to end development and shut down Spellbreak’s servers early next year.
Proletariat informed players of its decision in a blog post earlier today. The developer’s statement is short and quickly gets to the point, announcing the shutdown and thanking fans for their support. Proletariat didn’t give a specific date for shutting Spellbreak’s servers down, only that it will happen in early 2023. The post then briefly outlines the developer’s vision for Spellbreak before again expressing gratitude toward the game’s fans. The post does not explicitly state why developers are shutting the game down, though one can assume the game’s low player numbers are the primary cause.
According to SteamDB, Spellbreak only has about 96 players in-game as of this writing. That’s less than a full match in most popular battle royale games. It peaked at 5,504 players two years ago and has slowly declined since then. A few big spikes in Spellbreak’s Twitch viewership never translated to meaningful growth in popularity. While those numbers only reflect the game’s popularity on Steam, the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch ports likely saw a similar trajectory. As unfortunate as it is for Spellbreak’s remaining fans, the game’s impending shutdown seems to have been inevitable for some time.
For those unfamiliar with the game, Proletariat describes Spellbreak as a “multiplayer action-spellcasting game with exceptional movement and class customization that would give players the chance to unleash their inner battlemage.” It is a free-to-play battle royale where players arm themselves with magical gauntlets instead of guns. Developed over two years by a team of only six people, developers based Spellbreak’s gameplay on classic shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament. Meanwhile, the game’s setting and visual design drew from various sources, including games like Castlevania, League of Legends, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and films and TV shows including Akira, Princess Mononoke, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Spellbreak’s PC and Xbox releases saw generally positive reviews. While the PS4 and Switch versions saw a mixed reception, some still considered Spellbreak one of the best battle royale games on PlayStation. Unfortunately, that high praise never managed to attract a sustainable following.
Spellbreak is available on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One
Source: Proletariat, SteamDB