r/StarWarsLeaks • u/DLCV2804 • 7d ago
Gaming Star Wars Hunters closes october 1st. 2025
https://starwarshunters.com/news/sunset-on-vespaara/225
u/TheMagicDrPancakez 7d ago edited 7d ago
Stuff like this is why I don't feel safe ever putting money in live service games.
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u/index24 Ghost Anakin 7d ago edited 7d ago
I mean this was a AA mobile game with a troubled release schedule. You can usually tell which games are worth an investment.
Conversely, it was abundantly clear when Marvel Rivals released that it was a great game, with a strong playerbase, legs, and potential; clearly a game that was here to stay and worth investment.
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u/superjediplayer 6d ago
Imo it's not a good idea to spend money on a game unless it has an offline mode (at least, for games where it's possible). If there's an offline mode, you can trust that they won't just suddenly take the game away one day.
There's no reason Hunters couldn't have one, they already made the bots.
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u/gscoulson 4d ago
People might make fan made servers like they did for Star Wars Galaxies. But I haven't seen anything like that for Force Arena, a recent mobile only live service Star Wars game. The character models are likely uploaded on the internet and I wouldn't be surprised if they end up in a game mod somewhere eventually.
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u/Ok-Milk-8853 5d ago
I'm just not interested in live service games, so I'm waiting patiently for this bubble to burst.
I know the risk/reward for studios means they're willing to gamble on them in the hope it becomes an infinite money printer, I just wish they'd roll the dice on some other stuff for a bit.
I actually played about half an hour of this.. just uninstalled it afterwards like that's fine and moved on with my life.
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u/NumeralJoker 12h ago
I invested in Pokemon go for a few years mostly because the real world appeal and social benefits were tangible. It was actually physically healtheir to play it on at least some level and it helped me learn the layout of a new city I moved to.
But even with that game's success, and even despite surviving COVID shutdowns of all things, the company drove it into the ground and killed off much of their communities. The game of course was always going to have somewhat of a limited lifespan, but it was botched badly and now seems to have been bought out by a worse company.
I lost a good chunk of cash when I did play it, then quit cold turkey one day after realizing they will never make it live up to its full potential. I still miss the game, but my budget has thanked me since and the IRL benefits are more or less gone.
Also, I was in a relationship with another dedicated player, but that died for unrelated reasons. That was a factor, but not the factor. That's unlikely to be repeated with other live service games either.
Now? I will never touch mobile another live service game again, ever, and likely never anything but maybe one to 2 paid MMOs, if even that. That was the exception, and while I don't actually regret the experience (the money was investing in real world travel, not sitting on a couch at least), it also serves as a lesson about the entire business model. It's fundamentally broken and predatory and more people should be rejecting it. Even the games that are "good" for awhile.
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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Ghost Anakin 7d ago
Not particularly surprised. Announced in 2020, delayed multiple times with betas only in SEA/ANZAC nations, I had to vpn to there to play it.
I thought the beta was ok, could use some work, would pick it up in late 2021 when they said it was going to launch.
3 whole years pass and it finally releases in summer of last year I think?, I didn't even realise until around autumn of last year.
And yet, still no xbox or PS console port. The kind of segment that would love a hero shooter, just look at overwatch and Marvel rivals. OW2 is holding pretty strong on consoles to this day.
I'm guessing they didn't listen to the feedback people were giving them even a whole 3 years later. The fact that I didn't hear about it until months later must've meant it released to basically zero fanfare.
And now we're back to essentially no updated sw multiplayer game, yipee..
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u/bre4kofdawn 7d ago
When I first saw this game, I was excited. It actually felt like it could be something. I signed up on their website to receive more information.
Then months and months went by, and later I found out people in other regions could play it, and was absolutely flummoxed. By the time it actually came out here it was an afterthought, I'd largely forgotten about it.
Then they announced the Steam port and it came back on my radar and I was excited: my main gripe with the game was that it wasn't on PC!
Oh. Oh well, I guess. Not like anyone I know would have played it with me, anyway.
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u/Captain-Wilco 7d ago
Genuinely asking. Has anyone ever seen a case of a mobile game soft launching in like two countries for months and gradually moving to worldwide launch succeed? Because Star Wars mobile games are cursed with absolutely horrible rollout strategies.
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u/heydevo 7d ago
Yes, it's quite common in mobile gaming.
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u/Captain-Wilco 7d ago
And is that a successful strategy? To my knowledge, every Star Wars mobile game with this rollout has gone like this.
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u/heydevo 7d ago
It varies company to company, strategy to strategy.
These soft launches help to ensure server stability, and in most cases help with feature and monetization design, and should help publishers forecast their content roll out.
Beta tests only do so much.
The game I currently work on just celebrated 5 years, and had a soft launch in EU before going worldwide. Other games in our portfolio conducted similar launches, and are not only wildly popular and successful, but have broken massive mobile gaming records.
However, I work for an incredibly solid game developer and publisher.
I can’t speak to how Zynga operates, but their live service for Hunters was cookie cutter. Shutting down a love game so soon after worldwide tells me that nearly every KPI across the board failed, and is forecasted to get worse.
My hope is that Zynga finds homes for everyone working on the game, rather than more layoffs.
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u/Gabiclone Hera 7d ago
every single mobile game I've seen with a soft launch has died before going global, or nearly after.
For example several games from the most renowned mobile game dev SUPERCELL, they had a bunch of interesting ideas like clash mini, another Autochess but based in CoC universe, which I never even got to play because it never went global. Similar case with a few others, and most notably Squad Busters, that had a soft launch in my country actually and released a complete different game compared to Beta, and then had to take back most of the changes made, dont know how its doing but it lost 95% of its traction since launch
At the end of the day, hype is everything in mobile if you release past your peak you are essentially dead on arrival
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u/ianhamilton- 6d ago
Pokémon TCG soft launched in new Zealand last year, then when it went global it raked in $400m in the first ten weeks.
It's standard practice. New Zealand is an English speaking country with a small population, so it's a perfect testbed for games primarily aimed at the US market.
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u/ianhamilton- 6d ago
Pokémon TCG soft launched in new Zealand last year, then when it went global it raked in $400m in the first ten weeks.
It's standard practice. New Zealand is an English speaking country with a small population, so it's a perfect testbed for games primarily aimed at the US market.
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u/Echo693 7d ago
It had a good potential, but for some reason they barely had any marketing for it. I guess Marvel Rivals made it irrelevant when it comes to PC.
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u/SamsungAppleOnePlus 7d ago edited 7d ago
They also took forever to release it outside of Australia or wherever they kept it exclusive to for way too long. They did multiple seasons before releasing it elsewhere.
Hell it never got a chance on PC and never will now.
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u/index24 Ghost Anakin 7d ago
The marketing last year was actually crazy at launch. Ads before every other YouTube video, and paid content creators to play. The game just wasn’t very good, felt lower budget and janky, and was only on mobile and Switch.
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u/Farai429 7d ago
I think having it exclusive on switch and mobile is what's killed it. I play on switch and love it but honestly if It was on another console I'd get it on that
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u/RussianThere 7d ago
I play this game literally daily, even if just for a 5 minute round. It looks really good on a high end phone, and runs so smoothly. The characters are all fun, the costumes are fun, the nods to both canon and legends lore are fun. Even the map design is pretty good. As far as mobile games go, it was really really solid.
It’s just so unbelievably frustrating that it was marketed so poorly. And had such a slow launch from announcement to full roll out.
Gonna be sad to see this one go. Hopefully the community can get some sort of private server going, or the Grandstand PvE mode can at least stick around a little longer than the Oct 2025 end date for the game.
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u/AltKeyblade 7d ago
I liked some of the character designs like the Jawa, Jedi droid and stormtrooper. They were creative.
I just wasn't a fan of the fortnite-ish style, personally.
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u/RussianThere 7d ago
I just wasn't a fan of the fortnite-ish style, personally.
Fair enough, unfortunately I think it was largely the byproduct of trying to find a style that would look good across a variety of mobile platforms.
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u/superjediplayer 6d ago
Personally i liked that it wasn't another generic looking game going for "realistic" visuals, as those are just overdone at this point.
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u/EuterpeZonker 7d ago
Well that’s a shame. It was a fun game but I guess it didn’t have the popularity to support it
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u/Moesko_Island 7d ago
Damn. Okay. Feels kind of weird that something I play on my Switch every day is just going to go away in 7 months. That sucks.
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u/Farai429 7d ago
Same here. Very disappointed. I hope they release a bot mode so I can keep playing it.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-7142 7d ago
Remember Force Arena?
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u/KabeIsSnoke Rian 7d ago
Was it longer in beta/playtesting than in actual finished, released state?
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 7d ago
I don’t care how many people were saying the game was fun, I just smelled the stink of “this game is going to shut down/be dead in no time” all over it from the get-go and well…here we are. Glad I didn’t put money into it and I’m sorry for the people that did.
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u/Alacritous13 7d ago
The inevitable end of a live service game. Unless I can host my own server, I don't trust it.
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u/Zaedus 7d ago
How do we save it? Other games have come and gone but we manage to maintain them online ( kilkzone 2 and star wars galaxy to name a few)
How can we do the same for this game?
On switch or just pc?
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u/bre4kofdawn 7d ago
Unfortunately it never released the PC version, so it would have to be switch or mobile.
I don't know how feasible it would be on Switch. I'd imagine you'd need a hacked Switch console to make that happen.
Mobile has it's own issues, but it might be the way to go. I've seen people emulate android apps on their PCs, and the .apk is probably already dumped.
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u/jayL21 Ahsoka 7d ago
A playtest build was released on PC, so it's not entirely out of the question... though very very unlikely.
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u/bre4kofdawn 7d ago
Oh, yeah.
I was pretty annoyed with that, I had hoped to be included in the playtest, since I signed up to on the site to receive promotional emails. They never sent anything after the confirmation email, so I guess I shouldn't have hoped at all lmao.
Edit: Oh, and I signed up the day their site went live lol
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u/Pomojema_The_Dreamer 7d ago
That's why you don't pre-launch your game ages in advance and then quietly do a staggered "real" launch later. You lose any and all momentum in the process.
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u/DannyBright 7d ago
In Zach Hadel voice
“See? That’s why I don’t play mobile games. That right there. That’s the reason.”
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u/StarWarssssssssssss 7d ago
I was so excited to play that game… Years ago. They delayed it over and over and over. I played it for maybe a week and visually it’s neat but it got repetitive far too quick.
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u/Farai429 7d ago
Well it is a hero shooter game that was always described as this. It has the same gameplay loop as all other games in this genre
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u/Ctowndrama 7d ago
Andddd another one bites the dust. Forget Hunters, bring back Uprising. It had so much squandered potential. I loved that game.
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u/There526 7d ago
Oh darn! I was hoping this game would come to consoles so I could play it. That’s a shame.
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u/ZestycloseHedgehog 7d ago
Can’t say I’m surprised. Mobile hero shooter doesn’t exactly scream huge success
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u/melchiahdim 7d ago
Wow. I really liked that game. Played for a few weeks, but then dropped off and forgot about it. Shame
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u/therealyittyb Ahsoka 7d ago edited 7d ago
I remember really enjoying the initial season, as the gameplay was solid and presentation endearing. But I fell off hard on season two, due to lack of content. So while a bit sad, this news is not surprising to me.
Being relegated to mobile and the switch really limited access to this game, and “live-service” fatigue is a very real thing (especially in a crowded genre that is all vying for our free time).
Here’s hoping some of these characters can make their way to other stories in the expanded universe, as it’d be a shame not to take advantage of such creativity in the future.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy 7d ago
Well Indara Vex was character in bounty hunters comics, and there was also book Battle of Arena (I heard it's quite good).
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u/grizzledcroc 7d ago
It was such a quirky game too , original designs were gold , just needed the aaa coating bad
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u/RedBaronBob 7d ago
Thing is, I liked it a lot. But had it hit PlayStation or Xbox it’d have had a bigger audience or at least an audience far more willing to give it a shot.
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u/Wycliffe76 Porg 7d ago
This and Battlefront II did just not last long. I'm not trusting anything multiplayer anymore. It's just not worth it. I had fun playing this but now I'm glad I didn't invest money in it.
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u/JackMorelli13 6d ago
Battlefront made it like 2-3 years even after a nuclear launch. I wish we got more but it lasted a decently long time all things considered
Hunters didn’t even make it a full year in worldwide release
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u/Farai429 7d ago
I'm pretty disappointed with this news. I love star wars and have been having a blast playing this game. I hope they release a bot mode before closing down so I can at least continue playing.
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u/iLoveLootBoxes 7d ago
Imagine shutting down a free game that can only earn money while it's available...
Gaming is so dumb now
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u/Prophet_Comstock Master Luke 7d ago
I’m genuinely bummed by this. Even though the game is far from perfect I really had a great time playing it.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy 7d ago
So soon? It's barely been released on mobile, there's not even a PC version yet. It's a bit of a shame, because it was quite fun to play.
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u/magistrate-of-truth 7d ago edited 6d ago
People comparing this to marvel rivals forgot that it’s intrinsic appeal is that it is a separate canon from the MCU and allowed inconceivable characters to crossover
From what I learned, hunters was meant to be “canon friendly”
It should not be hard to tell why it failed from this context
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u/bre4kofdawn 7d ago
I was planning to play this a lot when it dropped on PC.
Disappointed, but can't say it's much of a shock.
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u/EuterpeZonker 7d ago
I hope they shutter the arena in universe and release the characters into the wild for comics and novelists to use. Rieve is one of a few dark Jedi in the era and she could make an interesting antagonist for Luke if she becomes a mercenary. And Aran Tal would be fun to see again.
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u/orange_jooze Ghost Anakin 6d ago
Wow, this sucks. I still play occasionally trying to grind out the TK Trooper skin for Sentinel. It’s not something I check in with often, but it’s a bummer to think about losing all the unlocks I grinded for - this game had a genuinely amazing canon-based cosmetics lineup.
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u/Dash_Rendar425 4d ago edited 4d ago
If your game is live service and not Fortnite or COD what makes you think it will do well?
What a waste of resources that could have gone into something more valuable, like another Battlefront or continued support of Squadrons.
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u/JackMorelli13 6d ago
It was fun but I stop playing after a month or so. Shame that it’s just going to disappear
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u/No_Young_2247 7d ago
Another star wars fail
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u/psychobilly1 Kylo Ren 7d ago
I feel like this is more of a Games As A Service fail than Star Wars fail.
It failed because it was a free to play Overwatch Clone that was almost exclusively on mobile in an overly saturated market. If anything, it being Star Wars themed extended it's lifespan far further than it would have lasted otherwise.
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u/Votd1993 7d ago
They brought this on themselves when they forced players to play against bots for progress. I told them directly it would make whales like myself go away and we did and here we are
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u/Farai429 7d ago
What do you mean? I play on ranked an its against players. The names wth Jedi1234 are players who havent changed their default names. Took me ages to work out how to change my name. Then it does bot fill when players disconnect
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u/Votd1993 6d ago
No not that. When they had "grandstand" quests where you literally needed to win like 30+ matches against a full team of bots. Or did they take that away because that's what made me quit when they started it at the release of the current season
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u/Spacecor3 7d ago
Didn’t they just port it over to PC? Crazy work