Battlerite. Games that went free-to-play and died anyway

Stunlock Studios AB has a MOBA game called Bloodline Champions in their back catalog. It was not a very popular game, which is a pity, because it introduced some freshness to the genre with interesting game modes. Unfortunately, it didn't survive on the market, but the team responsible for it resurrected the old idea in a new form – Battlerite. The content of this production has been heavily truncated – most of the MOBA elements have been abandoned, focusing on skirmishes between players. It was actually a full-blooded brawler that also misfired. Why is that?

In the case of Battlerite, the developers had no idea how to develop it further and encourage players to stay with it for longer. The matches looked remarkably similar, the characters weren't all that different (they had a similar skill set), and other than that, there was a lack of depth. Attempts were made to come up with something interesting and even succeeded – Battlerite got a battle royale mode. Unfortunately, in the form of a separate game with a separate client. The developers wanted to follow in the footsteps of Epic Games and Fortnite, but it simply didn't work out.

Battlerite initially tried to be a buy-to-play game, but in the times of free MOBA games, such a business model simply didn't make sense. The move to free-to-play turned out to be a good idea, but was implemented too late. Currently, the production is barely alive – it has been officially abandoned and will not be developed further.

LawBreakers

Cliff Bleszinski has delivered such recognizable games as Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Jazz Jackrabbit and Gears of War. His portfolio also includes LawBreakersa – a hero shooter, which was supposed to be a competition for Overwatch. However, it quickly turned out that Blizzard has already managed to sprawl on this segment of the market, and there was simply no room for another such game.

The gameplay in LawBreakers was actually much more brutal than in Overwatch. The focus is on fast-paced skirmishes, dynamic clashes and impressive, airborne combat. It was also promised that all future updates, characters, or maps will be free and you won't have to pay extra for anything. So what went wrong?

That elusive "something" was missing. Maybe it was the graphics style, maybe accessibility? Good reviews did not translate into popularity and gamers were not as willing to pay for this game. Cliff Bleszinski's demeanor didn't help either, as he put the blame for the poor condition of LawBreakers on everyone around (even PUBG!), but not himself and his own studio. As a result, even switching the game to a free-to-play model didn't help, as the servers were announced to be shut down shortly afterwards.

Age of Conan

Age of Conan had virtually everything needed to conquer the MMORPG market and sit on the throne alongside World of Warcraft. Unique world, interesting character classes, custom combat system. Plus brutality, nudity, and a certain maturity of the universe itself. .

Unfortunately, the developers were not ready to polish the game to a high enough level. Updates came with a delay, we had to wait a long time for news and as a result, players started to leave. Some attempt to salvage the situation was the introduction of free accounts (which turned out to be severely limited relative to the accounts of paying people), but even this didn't help.

Interestingly, the creators didn't give up until the end. Age of Conan has evolved into the fully free Age of Conan Unchained. The problem is that this MMORPG is not developed further and has gone into "maintenance status." Every once in a while, a small event is organized or a small scenario is introduced, but no real news is on the horizon – this has been the case for a good few years now. Despite this, there are still some survivors wandering around the servers, hoping that the developer will come back to this title.

Defiance

Defiance started off with a bang, as a first-person MMO shooter, with an extensive storyline and an accompanying TV show. Decisions made by the community were to affect the fate of the show's characters. Something like this hasn't been done before, so why do so few people remember this game?

Keeping the players' attention proved to be a standard problem. The show quickly became boring and was discontinued, and the Defiance video game was developed too slowly. There was a lack of content, and a lack of new players to populate the servers. That's why they were tempted to switch to free-to-play. Unfortunately, that was the only thing done, so Defiance simply failed.

The developers still tried to resurrect the title by re-releasing it in a slightly altered form. This is how Defiance 2050 was made – a reboot with new graphics and a lot of changes in gameplay. Unfortunately, the good beginning was not accompanied by further development and clearly lacked ideas on how to encourage players to play. As a result, this position also met an unpleasant end.