It’s a tough time to be a competitive multiplayer game right now. Whether you’re an ambitious indie or even a triple-A behemoth with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, carving out a niche, supporting it with content, and retaining players is no easy task. Level Zero Extraction certainly nailed step one. A horror-infused extraction FPS with a Dead By Daylight style asymmetrical twist that lets you play as a squad of mercenaries or as a terrifying alien, it was an exciting prospect. However, it struggled throughout its stint in early access, and despite reaching its 1.0 launch just over two weeks ago, developer Doghowl Games has revealed it’s ending support for the game.
We’ve seen plenty of Escape From Tarkov and Hunt Showdown rivals come and go in the last couple of years, and there are still some more in the pipeline like Exoborne (which we’re giving away some playtest keys for, by the way). Level Zero Extraction felt unique in this subgenre of FPS games with its genuinely eerie horror vibes and asymmetrical gameplay that fans of DBD or Left 4 Dead will appreciate.
However, there’s no escaping the fact that since it launched in early access in August last year, things have been pretty dire. Only 57% of its Steam reviews have been positive, and a glance at its Steam player count stats show some concerningly low numbers. There was hope that its 1.0 launch, which arrived just over two weeks ago on January 29, would reinvigorate the game, but now Doghowl is calling it a day on Level Zero Extraction, revealing that it has already received its final patch and will get no further support. Its servers will remain online for the time being, and monthly wipes will still occur, but there will be no more updates in the future.
“Unfortunately, [Level Zero Extraction] has underperformed compared to our expectations,” the studio says in its announcement message. “It’s no longer feasible for our relatively small teams to sustain the game from a financial standpoint. Therefore, it’s a hard but necessary decision to gradually wrap up the support.”
“Our desire was to create a game unlike any other by combining the extraction shooter and asymmetrical horror genres,” Doghowl also says. “Although we ended up seeing that those are not easy to blend, we’re grateful we had the chance to try and gain so much invaluable experience.”
Doghowl says that while its journey with Level Zero Extraction is ending, it plans to develop a brand new multiplayer title, which will be a “co-op experience” rather than a competitive one.
While Level Zero Extraction’s demise is sad and unfortunate, there are still plenty of great multiplayer games and horror games that you can get stuck into.
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