Battle Royale Spellbreak Holds Its Wizard Hat in 2023
Proletariat, a developer, released the projectile-based PVP Battle Royale game Spellbreak in 2020 on both PC and consoles. It was different than standard battle royale in that you had to combine magic spells with your opponents. This created a niche for the game among battle royale players. Proletariat announced that the game’s servers would be shut down in 2014 and that development would cease.
The news is from a blog post by Proletariat today. It states that they have “made a decision to stop the development of Spellbreak” (and that it will close down in early 2023).
The post states, “Our vision was for a multiplayer action-spellcasting gaming game with extraordinary movement and class customization that would allow players to unleash their inner battlemage.” We are grateful to all who participated in creating the beautiful worlds and experiences we shared. Spellbreak was a challenging project. We are eager to continue innovating as we develop new titles.
Although the post doesn’t mention why they are closing down, a Reddit posting by Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak provides more details.
Sivak stated that the game industry was a “difficult business.” ” Spellbreak failed to make it to a sustainable position where we could continue investing in it the way we had hoped. As an independent studio, we chose a difficult path and decided to compete against some of the most popular games in the world. Although we couldn’t achieve the escape velocity we needed, I don’t regret the bold decisions to bring Spellbreak into being.
The market is competitive, and Spellbreak didn’t do well enough for sustained development. Battle royales require constant attention because they are live service games. Epic Studios, accused of slaving their development staff to keep Fortnite spinning, find this difficult. The Proletariat is a smaller studio. It needs to either hit big to scale up or bet big without any backup.
It is also a very crowded market. Electronic Arts’ Apex Legends has been the most significant entry into battle royale since Fortnite. Activision’s Warzone is the second, a game that does not come from humble beginnings. Something smaller can slip through the cracks and get big without much luck.
