RIP Fallen Earth

There was some sad news on Tuesday. Fallen Earth will be taken offline on October 2nd, 2019 following its 10th-anniversary event. Little Orbit cited low population and bad server performance as the main reasons to shut it down.

Fallen Earth is one of those free to play steam games that I always like to go back to every now and then. Earlier this year, I was getting back into it and playing it fairly often. It has a unique setting, decent combat, and a very in-depth crafting system.

The player population was in the 50s on any given night. While it made the game feel as empty as a post-apocalyptic world should be it didn’t give me much confidence in the longevity of the game. Eventually, I just didn’t want to put more time into it because I didn’t know how much longer it was going to be around. I kept an eye on Fallen Earth to see if there were any updates to the game over the year. While there was some developement it wasn’t a whole lot to inspire confidence.  

There is some hope though. While the game in its current form is being taken offline there are plans to continue working on a new version. It’s hard to say how this will play out. I’m giving it a 50% chance that Fallen Earth will return to us. I personally hope it does. Fallen Earth is such a unique game in the MMO space I think a fresh coat of paint and better server performance could do it some good. I also think reworking the free to play model would also help in the future. When your game has such a heavy focus on crafting, it’s frustrating when you can only craft 2 items at a time that take 15+ minutes without paying.

This month  I plan on revisiting Fallen Earth one more time. I’d like to see as much of the world as I can before the servers shut down. Road tripping seems like the best way to say farewell to the game.