Disintegration turns off its online multiplayer today, five months after launch

It's just five months after the launch Disintegration and already its developers are saying goodbye to its online multiplayer. The hoverbike FPS meets RTS hybrid failed to find an audience that would make it worth keeping the multiplayer alive, its developers say. The singleplayer mode remains playable.

"We stand by the creative risks taken to launch such a unique, genre-bending game created by this small but talented and passionate team," the devs said when announcing the closure in a blog post back in September.

"While our player base showed interest in the single player campaign, the game unfortunately struggled to build a significant audience necessary for a compelling multiplayer experience. After weighing options, we have collectively made the decision to sunset the multiplayer support."

For all the developer's talk of "unique" and "hybrid" genres, no one seemed convinced Disinteigration was that interesting. In his Disintegration review, Henry Stockdale mentions that the multiplayer modes were nothing you hadn't already seen before, and that they were pretty bland.

Regardless, it's always sad when a game fades into obscurity like this. Back in January, I had a chance to pose some questions to game director Marcus Lehto (who's one of original creators of Halo) during a press Q&A, and he seemed really buzzed about what his team was making. But even back then I was skeptical at how well it would fare.

It's also an indictment of multiplayer games that are released without dedicated server support. Time was, multiplayer games could lose developer support due to a small player base, but those players could at least continue enjoying the game they'd paid for. Not so, nowadays.

It seems 2020 is the year for releasing multiplayer games that are kinda rubbish. Amazon's attempt at a hero shooter, Crucible, came out in May and went for the big sleep just last week, too.