2018 was the hype for Battle Royale in gaming: The MMORPG Black Desert wanted to profit from it somehow. They developed “Shadow Arena”, a “Battle Royale” mode for the action MMORPG – but the mode failed. The concept was released in May 2020 as a standalone game on Steam, but no one ever wanted to play it. Now Shadow Arena is being discontinued.
This was Shadow Arena originally:
Initially, the MMORPG Black Desert 2018 received a Battle Royale mode with “Shadow Arena”. You started as a Black Spirit and took over NPCs.
The whole mode didn’t really work within the MMORPG.
Instead of dismissing the idea as a mistake, Pearl Abyss apparently became so invested in the concept that they even brought the Battle Royale concept to Steam as a standalone game “Shadow Arena” in 2020. However, success remained elusive over 4 years – no matter what Pearl Abyss did with the idea.
MMORPG in fast track as a 15-minute round
This is how it was as a standalone game: The idea was to transform the MMORPG Black Desert into a “fast, PvP-heavy experience”. The plan apparently originated around 2018, as a result of the hype that Fortnite and later Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone created:
- There were 40 players in the match
- 10 heroes with various abilities
- Fast, action-packed battles with PvP and PvE content
It was a kind of “mini-MMORPG on speed”, where progression is extremely accelerated.
MeinMMO author Alexander Leitsch wrote back then:
You not only collect equipment, but also level up against PvE opponents and learn new skills. You basically play an MMORPG in fast track. A round takes about 15 minutes on average.
Game had less than 10 players online on average on Steam for months
What was the problem? The problem was that Pearl Abyss tried several versions of this idea, and none worked.
Apparently, hardly anyone wanted to play a “15-minute round MMORPG”, in none of the possible versions.
The problem is: once such a multiplayer game is considered “dead”, it doesn’t recover. Because people log in, find no players, and log out again. This sets off a downward spiral that results in a terrible image in the player numbers:
How did it go on Steam? The game really performed poorly on Steam: In May 2020, it started off low with 1,850 players. However, those numbers quickly dwindled.
By January 2021, the number was down to 33.5 players on average online at the same time per month. In the last few months, practically no one played the game anymore.
The reviews sit at a mediocre 55%, with comments like “Fun, but dead.”
This is what happens now: Pearl Abyss is now killing the idea once and for all. They say: despite the efforts to introduce many elements into the game, it is “inadequate”: From now on, there will be no more downloads and the servers will go offline on August 10.
Some MMOs have died too soon – with Shadow Arena, one wonders how the idea has survived for so long:
7 dead MMOs that left us far too soon
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