Disintegration multiplayer will shut down 5 months and one day after the game came out.
Developer V1 Interactive delivered the news in an update to Disintegration's official website. The removal of multiplayer will be carried out in phases, starting with the disabling of the in-game store today and ending with the full removal of Disintegration multiplayer on November 17. The announcement includes a brief explanation for the decision from the studio and its publisher.
"From both the development team at V1 Interactive and publishing group at Private Division, we stand by the creative risks taken to launch such a unique, genre-bending game created by this small but talented and passionate team. 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."
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It's not uncommon for games to disable parts or all of their multiplayer after launch if they lose popularity. Most do last longer than five months; I'm not sure if that's a record for the shortest-lived multiplayer component of a fully released game, but it's gotta be close.
GR's own Austin Wood actually preferred Disintegration multiplayer to its campaign in his 2-star review, though it was faint praise for a game he felt missed the mark overall: "If there is a group of people who really liked the turret section in Binary Domain and thought it would be improved by the addition of pet robots and another 10 hours, maybe they could extract some amount of fun from Disintegration. Unfortunately, I could not."
Our sister publication OXM talked to V1 Interactive studio head Marcus Lehto, one of the original creators of Halo, about the connection between his previous work and Disintegration.
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