Alive but not at all well: five games that time is trying to forget

There are countless games and series in this day and age that time has seemingly forgotten: Jak and Daxter, Turok, Earthworm Jim, are just a few that come to mind. These are classic franchises that are beloved in some way or form and yet they are pretty much dead in the water when it comes to new games these days. With this in mind, it got us thinking about a few games that time is already trying to forget, a few games that are somehow alive and yet are not at all well.

Rocket Arena

Last year, EA kicked out its 3v3 arena shooter Rocket Arena, a title that was developed by Final Strike Games and combined a variety of arcadey game modes with projectile-based PvP combat. It was a game that was rather fun, and used quite a unique concept, revolving around champions with unique abilities and moves, but despite having potential, struggled to keep a playerbase. Now 16 months after launch, the game has a single digit player count on Steam, with an all-time peak of 1,136 players (with that number coming from launch).

In December 2021 the game is still somehow alive, with what seems to be a pretty minimal amount of support. Season 4 launched back in July 2021, and a hotfix came out in early September, but the writing does seem to be on the wall for Rocket Arena, especially since the studio behind the game seems to be working on a new title that it is yet to announce.

Hyper Scape

At the height of the battle royale trend, Ubisoft looked to get in on what seemed to be an absolute gold mine, by launching its take on the genre, with the futuristic Hyper Scape. This game had all the typical battle royale tropes and basically just gave more of what was already commonplace in the sub-genre, and needless to say, over a year later, the future of this shooter is looking pretty bleak.

Ubisoft has not officially called it on Hyper Scape just yet, despite the fact that the last update the battle royale received was back in April 2021, but considering there has not been a new post on the game's Twitter account since June, we can probably just assume the story of this shooter has come to a close.

Godfall

This is one of those weird ones, where the game seems to be on life support, constantly dancing the line of life and death. If we had written this article back in May, we'd have probably said that Godfall was about to pack it in, after a disappointing launch that saw the admittedly gorgeous game fall short with tiresome gameplay mechanics and an uninspired narrative, but since then the game has received plenty of fixes, improvements, and even an expansion, thus narrowly avoiding a trip down the River Styx.

Yet, with this all in mind, it's hard not to see Counterplay's Godfall as one of those games that time is trying to forget. This is a title that despite countless updates and releases, just doesn't seem to quite draw any attention in a competitive market, and it really wouldn't surprise us if this time next year, the game had been pretty much ruled dead, or at the very least been marked as terminal.

Bleeding Edge

Yes, the decision has been made. Bleeding Edge is on its last legs and bound for death. But despite that, the game is somehow still active. Even though Ninja Theory made the official announcement that Bleeding Edge would not be receiving any more content back in January 2021, this PvP game has yet to officially close its doors to the four still active players on Steam's delight.

Yep that's right, Bleeding Edge, as of the time of writing, had a 24 hour peak of four players on Steam, which is just enough to fill one team of players for a competitive match. Granted there are other platforms to experience the game, likely with more players, but let's not kid ourselves, there are probably not all that many people logging in there either. And we bring this game up here because Bleeding Edge, despite its very, very terminal diagnosis, is still selling for the price of £24.99 on Steam. What a crazy world.

Titanfall

Unlike Bleeding Edge and its inability to simply accept the inevitable, or Godfall and its seeming inability to survive despite a lot of reinforcement, Titanfall is a game that is being eased into death, even though fans are doing everything in their power to ensure it doesn't succumb to that long night.

Respawn has pulled the game from sale, pulled it from subscription services, and seemingly cut off its lifeline, and yet the developer has kept its servers alive, as there are still dedicated players who frequent this shooter. This is one of those truly sad occasions where the Grim Reaper has come knocking early, and even though Titanfall lives on in Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, time is doing its best to write this one into the history books.