With controllers clenched and routers reinforced, a few determined players have been fighting to stay connected to the recently deprecated Nintendo Network servers for 3DS and Wii U. As of today, May 21, the number of known players logged in has dropped from four to three, as the last known Xenoblade Chronicles X representative has finally disconnected.
"I just got DCed," Twitter user XC_omoroid said. "I'm surprised that I somehow managed to beat the record set by the Noble 14 with the game known to have the worst netcode on Wii U?" Thankfully, they confirmed in a follow-up post that they "somehow managed to quickly beat all the online exclusives before getting kicked off the server," so at least their save file is functionally content complete.
XC_omoroid has been fighting the good fight since the April 8 shutdown, and as they mentioned in their tweet, this puts their online record ahead of the famous "Noble 14," a group of players who clung to the Halo 2 servers for weeks after the original Xbox Live shutdown over a decade ago.
"The worst netcode on Wii U" is maybe pushing it, but the multiplayer in Xenoblade Chronicles X, a stupidly large JRPG that was well-received back in 2015 and which is now crying out for a Nintendo Switch re-release louder than ever, was indeed notoriously janky. It was also cool and kind of endearing conceptually. Up to 32 players could form a large Squad for online communication via the Blade Report, or a smaller squad for simple four-player online Squad Missions.
Somewhat like Dragon's Dogma's Pawn system, you could also sign up to have your avatar added to the Blade pool where it could be scouted by other players, passively earning resources for contributing to their adventures. Naturally, you could enlist other players' avatars as well. All of this multiplayer stuff is fortunately non-essential apart from true completionist runs, and frankly it didn't work very well even when the servers were still alive, but it did add some spice to XCX's oddball world.
In addition to widespread player efforts, this server shutdown prompted the formation of dedicated watchdogs like Nintendo Network After Hours, whose most recent count reckons there are now just three known players still connected to the defunct servers: Fishguy6564 in Mario Kart 7, SlitherySheep in Mario Maker, and Lcd101 in Splatoon. This stuff can be difficult to track and validate, but this figure lines up with our ongoing coverage of the shutdown's aftermath.
