Bandai Namco's free-to-play shooter Gundam Evolution only launched on Xbox back in December, but it's already planning to close down, with the company announcing November 29th, 2023 as its official departure date.
No specific reason has been given for the decision - Bandai Namco has simply "determined that it is no longer possible for us to provide a service that satisfies our players". Here's a bit more of the announcement:
"We wanted to create a title that brought FPS fans and Gundam fans together. We challenged ourselves to create an authentic Gundam FPS game that could be played globally. Unfortunately, we have determined that it is no longer possible for us to provide a service that satisfies our players.
We want to express our gratitude to everyone who has played the game and supported us to this point. At the same time, we would like to sincerely apologize to our fans and players."
If you look at the "Top Free Games" list on the Xbox Store, Gundam sits quite a long way down the list at present, suggesting it hasn't proved as popular on the platform as Bandai Namco would have hoped.
For those who do want to play some more of the game before November 2023, Season 6 is still being rolled out on August 23rd, and a final season will also arrive on October 25th. It's not the end just yet!
"Though GUNDAM EVOLUTION is coming to an end, updates will continue to roll out with Season 6 (adding a new unit and two maps) on August 23 (PDT) and the final season (adding a new unit and a map) on October 25 (PDT). We will do our best to ensure that our players can enjoy GUNDAM EVOLUTION to the fullest till the very end."
Sad to be losing Gundam Evolution on Xbox? Tell us down in the comments section below.
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[source gundamevolution.com]
Comments 17
For me any single player game gets priority over multiplayer. I would think there are only so many gamers available to any ecosystem…
To be fair, it was awful. It was Overwatch with mobile suites. But was devoid of what few fun bits Overwatch used to have.
SD Battle Alliance is infinitely better.
But for some reason they fail to five Xbox good releases like Battle Operation.
Hell, Operation Troy/Mobile Ops The One Year War, an amazing early 360 game, essentially Battlefield Gundam, never even got a US release.
I've never touched a live service game and no intentions of playing them either I don't play mutl player games really much neither to ne honest for me it's all about single player I understand there's a lot of money to be made in these type of games though they won't be getting a penny from me though ever
Removed - unconstructive
@Fanat1c I know lol
This was a fun title but the video game market is so saturated right now and we only have so much time. Shame to see since it just came out, glad I didn't fork out any cash on it.
I wasn't even aware of this game. About a month ago I tried the Super Deformed game on streaming. It was OK, I just didn't have the patience for all the dialogue.
@InterceptorAlpha I just wanna say, we are so long overdue for Zeonic Front 2.
Don't play F2P games, rarely play MP games and had no interest in any aspect of this so never played and was never likely to play either...
Another Game as a Service disappearing... With talk about Game Preservation, will any GaaS ever be 'preserved'?
@Utena-mobile its because this game wasn't adverised, period. hardly microsoft's fault when its on three platforms. the other issues was extreme MTX, not listening to players, an no easy way to unlock units without paying.
no adverts, not listening to player base, extremely after your wallet - not much incentive for new blood to stick around.
bamco dropped the ball. its a serious shame cause the devs themselves was very receptive.
@SplooshDmg Aaaaaahh. Shy you gotta remind me of Zeonic Front? Now the nostalgia hurts 😂 Journey to Jaburo and Encounters in Space also ate up a ton of my time.
Honestly, I'd even settle for a Super Robot Wars, but we know the licensing nightmare that anything not SRWOG is.
@InterceptorAlpha I played such an unholy amount of all three of those games. That had to be the golden era for Gundam games, for me. I think I had eventually conquered Zeonic Front on the hardest difficulty, and I felt like that game was difficult even on just normal. Those were the good ole days.
@BAMozzy probably most of them. Hopefully some of them can be switched to community run servers.
This is why live service games aren’t a great idea. Quite frankly it takes quite a bit of luck for something to catch on and a lot of money invested in publicity to make a live service work neither of which this game had. Companies are trying to invest into this ecosystem but the people willing to try just aren’t there.
Cool game, but a little too childish ...
@ParsnipHero The issue is often the fact that these games not only rely on having a 'large' active online player-base to 'function' at their best. You need enough 'local' gamers in the same Lobbies/Game Modes to make matchmaking with the lowest Ping and less likely to have 'Language' issues too otherwise the game is 'sub-optimal' at best, unplayable at worst.
Not only that, these type of games are updated and additional content, even if its 'just' cosmetics, that its 'pointless' preserving the 'base' code, the game on 'Disc', the release day version. By the time the game is 'complete' - as in the Devs are not adding more and moving on from that game, its because the bulk of their user base has also moved on. So they close down - so is it 'worth' preserving games that require large number of users to function properly and/or bloated out with Cosmetic MTX.
All I was saying is that realistically, not 'every' game should be preserved and GaaS are good examples of why in my opinion...
@BAMozzy ahh. That was not clear from the message I replied to.
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