Last week was a week of cancellations, and there’s another one to add to the list with Velan Studio announcing that Knockout City will be coming to an end in June.
The competitive dodgeball game with a twist of superpowers and a focus on teamwork found enough success to stick around for a lot longer than some free-to-play games, but that has not stopped it from meeting the same fate. Knockout City Season 9 will be the game’s last, and it will close up shop on June 6th, two years after its release.
Velan Studios announced the news in a blog post and stated that although the game has had over 12 million players, the work to make it sustainable for a continued time is impossible for them.
“Since we are a small, indie studio, it’s simply impossible for us to make those kinds of systemic changes in the live game while continuing to support it. So it became clear to us that we needed to take a step back and pave the way for Velan to do what we do best by innovating. Now we can take everything we learned, everything that succeeded and everything that needs improvement, and get to work on exploring new possible experiences for Knockout City and other games and products we are very excited about.”
Season 9 of Knockout City will begin on February 28th, and at the same time, microtransactions for the game will be switched off. There will be plenty to buy; however, using the high amount of Holobux you’ll be able to earn in-game to purchase what Velan Studios promises to be one last party of costumes and more. The studio will not give refunds for any purchased items, including Holobux.
On May 23rd, when the Season ends, there will be a “Thanks for the KOs” event featuring triple XP, and then the game’s servers will shut down on June 6th.
When the servers shut down, you won’t get past the “press start” screen. However, Velan Studios is planning to release a stand-alone, player-hosted version of the game for PC so it can live on.
How do you feel about Knockout City closing its servers? Let me know in the comments section below.
