Square Enix's mech shooter game Figureheads to be shut down in June of 2018

On March 15th, Square Enix announced that their ongoing free-to-play mech shooter game Figureheads is to have its server shut down on June 30th, 2018. Figureheads had originally released in Japan on PC on March 11, 2016 before being released on PlayStation 4 on March 9th, 2017. It never received an official English release.

Square Enix explained the reason behind the decision to shut down Figureheads, which has been translated below by PlayStationLifeStyle:

“From the very beginning of the service, we performed expansions with an axis on a unique gameplay system that let players enjoy both shooting and strategy elements, and many people were able to play it.

We thought we could provide “an experience that could only be tasted with this game,” but on the other hand, more than half of the customers didn’t even finish a single match and ended up leaving the game due to reasons like “It’s difficult to control wingmen,” “The game rule is not simple,” and “The game speed is slow.”

This was an extremely fatal situation for a versus game, but it was also a title with a trait that led people who took a liking to it to continue playing in the long term. So while we tried to keep this title’s gameplay system as much as possible, we intended to add more people to enjoy the game, including those who want to play modes other than versus, by adding a new PvE mode which could also let them get used to the controls. Also, as we adjusted the game balance and speed bit by bit, we were able to release the PS4 version of Figureheads on March 9, 2017.

Through various improvements and measures, more new people had continued to play compared to before, but ultimately we were unable to improve the core issues and decided it would be difficult to continue this service in the long term.”

The server for Figureheads will be officially shut down on June 30th at 16:00 Japan time, according to PlayStationLifeStyle. And before that, the download client will no longer be available on June 28th at noon in Japan. According to another source, micro-transaction sales will be terminated on March 22nd.

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About the Author

Raptorchan Raptorchan joined the Nova Crystallis team in 2017 after discovering her passion for writing and gaming journalism. She is not only an avid Square Enix fan, but also a cosplayer who loves collecting figurines, playing RPGs and making videos.

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