Babylon's Fall infamy continues as it's become Square Enix's latest failure in service games. It needs its A Realm Reborn moment.

What is A Realm Reborn?

To understand what A Realm Reborn is, we first look back in video game history. In 2010, Square Enix released its second Final Fantasy MMORPG – Final Fantasy XIV. The game was reviewed negatively by critics. It was buggy, not fun, and its servers crashed a lot. This resulted from a team that undertook a massive project with a new game engine no one was familiar with a very tight deadline. Needless to say, Final Fantasy XIV was a failure.

Thankfully, the team developing Final Fantasy XIV didn't just take the loss and move on. The team instead went back to the drawing board and developed almost an entirely new game from the ground up. This became known as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which was released three years after the original came out. This game turned out to be way better than the original. Its fans appreciated the effort that the developers made in turning things around, and the game is now considered to be one of the best games out there, not just in the MMORPG genre, nearly a decade since it was first released.

What happened to Babylon's Fall?

Well, Babylon's Fall has been failing lately. In fact, the game's concurrent player count on Steam has dropped to just one over the past month. For a game that relies on an active playerbase to make money, that's not a great sign.

Square Enix and PlatniumGames tried their best to bolster the chances of success for Babylon's Fall. In fact, the game's first season was even in collaboration with one of PlatinumGames' most successful titles – NieR: Automata. But that game's popularity didn't even rub on Babylon's Fall by association. Instead, fans saw the game for what it was: a bland game with a weak attempt at bringing NieR: Automata's fluid combat mechanics to a cynical looter multiplayer live service game.

There's still hope, though. If Final Fantasy XIV was able to reverse its fortune and become one of the most well-loved games of all time, so can Babylon's Fall. Arguably Final Fantasy XIV was off in a much worse situation when it launched compared to Babylon's Fall. This more recent title is only bad because of its live service elements. At its core is a fun gameplay loop that you can enjoy with your friends. It's not super buggy – the game works just fine.

Hence, PlatinumGames and Square Enix need to bring the game back to the drawing board, just like what they did to Final Fantasy XIV more than a decade ago. The game has potential, as it has a great game hidden at its core. They only need to refine the concept and bring it back to the market with a better, less cynical gameplay. Perhaps with player experience as top of mind next time, maybe Babylon's Fall actually stands a chance.

The same can be said with Square Enix's other recent failure – Marvel's Avengers by Crystal Dynamics. In fact, Marvel's Avengers could be salvaged much more easily compared to Babylon's Fall, as you can just remove Marvel's Avengers' annoying grind and you have yourself an already amazing game. However, given that Square Enix has already sold off Crystal Dynamics, then there's no more chance of this happening. Such a shame that Square Enix's games didn't get the chance they deserve due to monetization issues.