Earlier today, it was revealed by Sharkmob that Bloodhunt – the developer’s free-to-play, vampire-themed battle royale – has been shelved. There will be no more major updates for the game, and going forward, only ‘maintenance patches’ will be applied to the platform. It was stated that servers will stay online and that Sharkmob is introducing one final feature to the game, but just twelve months after the game was released, it’s effectively being sunsetted.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt, to give the game its full name – was popular enough for a while. It was a high-octane, supernatural twist to the ever-enjoyable battle royale genre that was quite widely appreciated, even if it never blew anyone’s minds, so to speak. It was explained by Sharkmob that those numbers failed to climb high enough to sustain the game’s development, and that’s why it’s being retired.
Bloodhunt’s Time Has Come to an End
In the statement released by Sharkmob, it was revealed that one final, minor update will be deployed in the near future, bringing an in-game player voting system to change things up a bit. Then, once that has been released, no more updates will be applied to the platform.
In September, currency purchasing will be turned off, but before that, Sharkmob said it will try to find a way to let players earn in-game currency in a much easier way, so they can continue to unlock more cosmetics while the servers remain online.
But how long will they remain online?
Sharkmob explained that they’ll be hosting the servers ‘for as long as we have an active player base and community’. How small will that community get before Sharkmob shuts it down completely?
On Steam – as a representative example – Bloodhunt’s all-time peak sits at 29,000 players, and at the time of publishing, a mere 800 players are online. On Twitch, viewership dropped from a peak of 40,000 people to a daily peak of around 200 users.
It’s a sad fact, but that rapid crash in viewership and players is the ultimate nail in the coffin for Bloodhunt.
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