Gigantic had a one-of-a-kind story surrounding its development, with the developers trying to finish the game without pay. In the end, their hard work and perseverance ended in happy story at the time, with the game seeing a full release. However, after January’s update, the game will cease to have further updates, and the game will be shutting down for good in July.
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the January Update is the final content update for Gigantic,” says SoFech of the Motiga development team. “The team wants to give a big shout out to our awesome community – both those who have been with us since the beginning as well as those who just picked up the game recently. We want to extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who gave Gigantic a chance.” SoFech goes on to talk about the January Update unlocking all the heroes to use for free for the remainder of the game’s life. Rubies and Hero Packs can no longer be purchased, but anyone with Rubies or Crowns on their account will still be able to make purchases from the store at discounted prices.
The main reason for shutting down the game was due to Motiga not being able to find a viable option to sustain Gigantic, and that “the current state of the game has restricted options for further progress and relevant content updates, and delivering basic features while also fixing long-standing issues was more complicated than expected,” and as a result, they were “unable to find an impactful solution that would help Gigantic break through in a crowded market.”
Though sad to see Gigantic go, there seems to be a trend with developers decideding to shut down their MOBA titles. Just last week, Epic Games announced that it would be shutting down its MOBA game, Paragon, and just two months ago, NCSOFT announced that it would be closing Master x Master. Although the game is not shutting down, Gearbox announced that its take on the MOBA genre, Battleborn, would no longer receive development updates. As stated before, one of the main reasons for these games shutting down is due an overcrowded market. Games like Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm, and League of Legends usually steal the limelight in the MOBA genre. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to compete on the same level as those games, and in turn, those games fail to find reliable sustainability for its future after launch.
Gigantic will be available to play for free up until July 31. Afterwards, the game’s servers will shut down permanently and render its content inaccessible.