Sony announced back in September that they were shutting Gravity Rush 2’s servers on January 18, but due to a fan-driven campaign, the publisher decided less than a week away from the shutdown date that they will keep the game’s servers open up until July 18. The community that started the campaign, Gravity Rush Central, managed to start a hashtag that allowed fans to express their love for the game. The support was apparently so great that they got the attention of Sony, which in turn led to the extension. Gravity Rush 2 director Keiichiro Toyama stated that “a lot of work went into online features that allow for asynchronous player interaction.”
This statement helped Gravity Rush Central founder Miguel rally up other fans of the game. He stated in a post last month that “All that work is about to be thrown away. And looking forward, if Sony is already pulling support for the online components of the game, it’s questionable if they’ll ever want to invest into a future sequel.” In order to grab Sony’s attention, Miguel devised #DontForgetGravityRush and asked that everyone tweet at Sony’s Japanese branch and president Shuhei Yoshida with the hashtag and glimmers of hope that they would keep the servers alive.
“I knew it would be unlikely for Sony to respond directly, as acknowledging that the delay of the closure was a direct result from the #DontForgetGravityRush campaign could give fans of other games the idea of starting a similar campaign,” Miguel said. The game is primarily single-player and story driven, and Sony might have thought it better for the business to cut off the online features. However, the campaign’s success might bring forth new interest to the game and help set a stage for the future of the franchise.