Playing Concord at the End of the World

Fortnite is a “dead game”, League of Legends is a “dead game”, Overwatch2 is a “dead game” — at least that’s what people say online sometimes. Despite people playing the games and developers supporting them, the long running meme is common in games, used to describe (both a game and a And the people who call the game a dead game), insult, or just plain stupid – very rarely is a game really dead. Treaty is an exception.

Firewalk Studios and Sony Interactive Entertainment’s new hero shooter officially launched on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC on August 23. But in less than two weeks, Firewalk Studios and the publisher have pulled the game from storefronts and will soon shut down its servers. Game director Ryan Ellis announced on Tuesday that Treaty Servers are scheduled to shut down on September 6, after which the studio will review the game and “explore options.” (A community manager wrote on Treaty(‘s official Discord server that the game will go offline at 1:00 p.m. EDT.) According to Sony, anyone who purchased the game will get their money back. It’s not something you see often, but it’s not unprecedented; Sony took Cyberpunk2077 from stores in 2020, but the game was still playable elsewhere. More analogous is Warner Bros.’ Multiversuswhich was offline for about a year.

The closing schedule for Treaty players had only a few days left to see out the rest of the game life. Not many people bought Treatybut it wasn’t a complete failure: An IGN report estimates that 25,000 people have purchased the gameAt its peak, nearly 700 people played Treaty concurrent players on Steam. (PlayStation 5 figures are not available, which is common for PlayStation games.) The number dropped to 119 concurrent players on Steam on September 2, one day before the shutdown was announced.

Still, for TreatyFor a few dedicated players, the last few days have been a mix of chaos and sadness. After jumping into the final hours, Polygon spoke to half a dozen Treaty players who are sitting out the game’s death throes.

My experience was not unusual; if I hadn’t heard the news, I would never have known Treaty was not successful. There was no talk about the shutdown in the game itself, and the wait times to get into the game were very short. I had fun during the matches, similar to playing Overwatch for the first time. No one was participating in the team chat, which one player told me was normal — he had played over 100 matches and hadn’t communicated with a single person, something he considered a blessing given the toxicity issues of other games. While I was one of dozens of players on Windows PC, there were apparently many more on PlayStation 5. A Houston player, Ahmed, told Polygon that he hoping to play Treaty at least one more time before the shutdown, but it was unsuccessful: Valve almost immediately automatically refunded the game’s price when Firewalk announced the game would be shutting down.

Elizabeth, a Treaty player from Canada, told Polygon she had put about 21 hours into the game — and felt it was worth the price. “Playing Treaty was a blast, despite its bad reputation,” said Elizibeth. “The detailed maps full of charm, the skyboxes that really gave off that interstellar vibe, the powerful sound design, and the unique take on hero shooters really made it different from all the other hero shooters out there.”

The experience of Treaty changed after Firewalk Studios announced its closure. Now people are chasing achievements — specifically the Experienced Freegunner, which requires a player to reach level 100. Doing that in just two weeks would be an achievement. As of Thursday, it had a 0.4% achievement rate on Steam, meaning a fraction of a fraction of people have made it. The problem for people who want to enjoy the end of Treaty does that experience with farming mean that people don’t Actually play the game.

“Since the shutdown was announced, what used to be fun and engaging battles have degenerated into mostly players grinding out individual characters to get achievements as quickly as possible,” Elizibeth said. “Ironically, the Rivalry game mode, which recently saw a huge xp buff per match, has become almost an instant que. Previously, it was nearly impossible to find a match in the playlist, but now you can (be able to) jump in and play. On the surface, that sounds great, but the games are over as quickly as they are found now, as many people are indeed jumping to their own doom like lemmings to gain experience quickly.”

She compared the experience to Let’s visit grandma on her deathbed“Where people used to switch characters to maximize crew bonuses and have some semblance of strategy, now people just stick to one character and max them out or blast themselves into oblivion to finish the match and get more Freegunner ranks before grandma kicks the bucket,” Elizibeth said.

Most of the players I encountered in my matches (as a player who started at level 1) were of lower levels, ranging from 1 to 15 — a mix of people who, like me, started the game just as it was ending and others who had been playing for a while. bit more time. The pace of the games was frenetic, as is natural for an action shooter, something that was reflected in the rush of the trophy hunter or race to consume as much content as possible before the shutdown. Regardless, the time spent by the players I spoke to was generally enjoyed.

And therefore, when Treaty is shut down indefinitely on Friday, there are a few players planning to go down with the ship.

“So to answer your question why I keep going… It’s because the game is fun and I had a lot of fun playing it,” said one Treaty player, Kevin, said. “I’ve never waited longer than 90 seconds for a game and I’ve always enjoyed every game I’ve played. Why wouldn’t I keep going if I enjoy playing it?”