Indie shooter devs pull a reverse-Concord: No one played their game, but they 'make it free to play and keep the servers online indefinitely' anyway
After around a year and a half in early access, Blindfire—a multiplayer FPS whose main thing is that its arenas are all incredibly dark, forcing you to rely on your other senses (and tech, naturally) to catch enemies—got its full release.
Which was something of a bittersweet event for its devs at Double Eleven, who wrote in a message to players that "We failed on our terms, and we're proud of that."
Blindfire had, quite simply, failed to set the world on fire. Despite mostly positive reviews, it never caught on, meaning its release was more of a Viking funeral than anything else. But—in a time where online games suddenly becoming unplayable is more of a hot-button issue than ever—the devs said that they were going to make the game free rather than shutter it, and committed to keeping the servers up for years to come.
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"Blindfire didn't blow up. It didn't top charts. But it meant everything to the team who made it," wrote the devs. "Instead of shutting it down, we've made Blindfire free for everyone. Not as a marketing stunt. Not as a desperate last push. But because we believe creative work matters, even when it doesn't go viral."
Not only is the game now free—you can add it to your Steam library right now, should the mood strike you—but Double Eleven is seemingly committed to keeping it going for a good long while yet: "We're keeping the servers up. We're preserving what we built. No tricks. No shutdown countdown. Just the game, as it is, ready for anyone who wants to jump in—now or years from now."
Development on the game has ended. In fact, in a blog post accompanying the transition to free-play, the devs say "active development" has been finished for about a year. But the game has gotten one final update to mark its 'full' release: "We have added two new weapons: the Desolation, an explosive sticky-slug shotgun, and the Tempest, a precision burst rifle. There are also achievements to hunt down, a big batch of new skins and full haptic support to make every shot feel a little more real."
Most interesting of all, the game now has an "Audio Aim Assist" feature for blind and partially-sighted players. "We heard from blind and partially sighted players that Blindfire was one of the first shooters they could truly compete in. This new feature adds audio cues to help keep you oriented and let you know when an enemy is in your sights. To us, it feels like a fitting final addition to a game about fighting in the dark."
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I'll admit that part of me wonders if this move isn't at least a little bit of a marketing move, but I don't doubt that devs' passion for the thing they've built is genuine. And at the end of the day, it's nice to see a game not immediately sink beneath the waves the second it was clear it hadn't made it big. Now we just need some self-hosting options for when the official servers go off, and we'll really be cooking.
