[h3]Just shy of its one year anniversary, BABYLON'S FALL shuts down on 2/28; An ill-fated live service ARPG by the very studio that brought us Nier:Automata. Though it may fade like the civilization that inspired it, there are important lessons here worth considering for aspiring game developers and consumers alike, namely: Beware the live service model.[/h3]
BABYLON'S development began back in 2017 around Automata's release, with Platinum's desire to try its hand at online gaming. Partnering with SE for its success in this arena and convenient use of FFXIV's assets, it certainly seemed like a recipe for success. So what happened? A pandemic, a lackluster beta test, and marketing that didn't communicate well with its intended audience (anticipating a Nier-like single player action adventure), culminated in one of the biggest flops of our modern era.
Putting aside the marketing and development concerns, let's focus on the player experience--the paying customer. What was BABYLON like?
[h3]I. Oil Painting Aesthetic[/h3]
In a bold move, the devs saw fit to emulate classical European paintings to capture the "antiquity" feel. This was done with an animated overlay (translucent brush textures) + peripheral blur filter that made edges jagged and grainy. To be fair to the artists, they really nailed it. There are moments that you can screenshot the game and swear you're looking at actual concept art. But it's not without issues.
For one, the game struggles with weather effects. Most stages have a rain variant, and in these, it's a smeared mess. There's also the issue of the color palette. While admirably faithful to its origin, do muted colors, bleached whites, murky greys, and mustard yellows evoke high octane action? The color range is narrower and the potential is there to pose some difficulty for colorblind individuals.
Not to be glossed over is the animation. In game is fine. Cutscenes, however, are wildly inconsistent. Some are rendered live, with smooth gestures. Others are told through stop motion vignettes. Characters move like mannequins. If there's action, it's with a heavy motion blur, further dulled by drab colors and thick shadows. It's the type of quality you'd expect from a mobile game, not a AAA console release.
[h3]II. Bad Writing[/h3]
It's not fair to demand a Game of Thrones epic out of a video game, but the plot is bad. Like, anime filler bad. Your ragtag team of you, fellow slave, bossy princess, crazy old man, proud knight, and somehow tech genius orphan are enough to overcome every challenge and do what no one has done before. It's episodic, claustrophobic, and does nothing to flesh out its bizarre sci-fi twist. To add insult to injury, the seasonal questline post game is a literal recreation of the first, so they could recycle virtually everything.
[h3]III. Stiff combat, Useless Scoring, Locked Progression[/h3]
You'd expect the creators of Bayonetta to give us a sleek, stylish, and combo-heavy battle system to sink our teeth into, right? Well forget that and imagine that they played Dark Souls first. Weapons are slow, even fast weapons are slow, and ranged weapons feel utterly useless without charging. The twist is that you can dodge at almost any time, if you have the SP for it. Simply tap the button right as you're about to get hit for free iframes and maybe gear bonuses. You equip 4 weapons, one light, one heavy, and two spectral, but only the first two have smooth combo potential as spectral are SP limited.
Bizarrely, the game removes important features until you progress far enough into the story, like accessory slots or core customization. But for the purposes of combat, there are 3 stances, which aren't given to you until much later. This forces you to re-learn combat mid game, why? The technical stance is marketed as for players who like combos, but lacks any kind of tutorial to teach you the proper timings or move variety. Up to you to read move lists and figure it all out.
Stages are divided into 3 or 4 combat zones, with the last being a miniboss of sorts, and each of these score you. Try as you might, your perfect dodging, uninterrupted combos, and weapon switching mean almost nothing next to how fast you win. Time is king, so even if you get KO'd and revive, there's no penalty to pure platinum on the bosses. Tanking is rewarded over finesse.
In case you're wondering, I found the best combo to be bows. All bows, maybe one sword for variety. Charge your spectral bows at all times, and paired with a heavy bow charge, can melt almost everything sans the trickier boss fights.
[h3]IV. Shallow Crafting, Low Variety Loot[/h3]
Run quests to grab everything shiny, then return to base to break it all down. Using those materials, you can enhance, reroll an ability slot, or craft something new. BABYLON's crafting solution is: RNG. You can only modify one slot, the rest you're stuck with. So forget about making your dream gear - you'll have to re-craft new till you get close. Enhancing doesn't really help an old gear become better, unless min/maxing. Divine gear have unique passives that can't be obtained any other way, but that means 1% drop grinding.
My experience was to equip the highest level drop after every mission. Never needed to craft anything to clear the game or beat the 2nd final boss. Maybe, attention to elemental resistance could be important to improve damage and resist being downed. I never bothered, though.
[h3]V. Region Locked Matchmaking, Too Many Quests, NO In-game Chat[/h3]
This one is probably the most egregious. Once you create your account, you're locked to it forever. BABYLON is not worldwide, matchmaking is limited per region. You can't transfer without creating a new account and losing all progress. What a brilliant way to kill your multiplayer online only game.
Not just enemies, but quests also got the reskin treatment. Higher difficulty variants unlocked as you progressed, cluttering your options with 3 or 4 versions of the same thing. While it's nice variety to revisit old stages for new loot, think about the matchmaking problems of having 50 missions to choose from and nobody who joins your party.
Need to ask for help? Hope you have the emote for that, since you can't type anything. You can't see a list of open parties queuing for quests, you only have the option to be randomly matched by type. Wanted to coordinate builds or ask if others needed certain resources? Impossible. Discord is your only hope, assuming those players even use it.
[h3]VI. 60$ Base, Microtransactions, Online Only[/h3]
This speaks to the Live Service problem. You pay AAA price for admission, only to be saddled with reminders to spend to unlock premium battle pass, fashion, or certain grind shortcuts. There's no offline content whatsoever, so you can't play if your internet is down. Now that the servers are going offline, purchasers have nothing to show for it, even though the game is perfectly playable solo.
[b]In conclusion...[/b] BABYLON was too ambitious for its own good. As an action game, it needed to reassess its visuals, combat, and multiplayer experience. I think this title was better suited to be single player. And on that note, as I lament on every live service shutdown, Devs: Plan for shutdown. Think about repackaging your game in an offline mode. Consumers win, and you may win, with a product you can still sell with some changes.
[u]Achievement Hunters[/u]: ~30 hrs to 100%. Complete the main campaign. After that, title-linked achievements, like drops, 1 million currency, and crafting. Quite possible solo.
Crafting is trivial thanks to sieges (marked with flashing white dot on quest menu), the only issue being grinding to Lv210 to be able to deal enough damage. Each run nets 10 tickets, 40 are needed for Divine Oil, 8 for Legend. These are the bottlenecks to crafting armor and accessories to cap. Use a Legendary item (purple) to do these, since the resources are cheaper than divine.
