The team at Hoplon announced on Tuesday that Heavy Metal Machines will be shut down on all platforms on August 30th, 2022. While the game remains playable for existing owners it appears that it was removed from digital stores as early as this morning. The game has been on Steam through betas and Early Access as far back as 2015 but only launched on PlayStation and Xbox consoles in February of 2021. That’s just barely over a year and half on sale. The team’s announcement from May 3rd follows:
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the ending of Heavy Metal Machine’s life cycle. HMM’s dedicated servers will be shutting down on the 30th of August, 2022. This means the game and all its related features will no longer be available, including all game modes, and the in-game Store. This applies to all platforms, including Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. Here’s a timeline of the planned server shutdown
30th of May, 2022: Virtual currency (Cash) packages removed from Heavy Metal Machines and will no longer be available for purchase. All other game features will be available normally, including the in-game Store where players will be able to spend their Virtual currency (Cash).
30th of August, 2022: Dedicated servers shut down, Heavy Metal Machines no longer available, in-game Store no longer available.
Discontinuing HMM was a difficult decision. The Hoplon team has put a lot of work and passion into HMM, and we are very proud of what the game has become and the community we have nurtured. We feel we have accomplished our vision of bringing a really unique experience within the MOBA genre.
We would like to extend a big THANK YOU to all the Metal Gladiators that have been a part of the HMM family over the years. We truly appreciate all the love we have seen for this game. May HMM live on in our hearts and minds!
See you in the Arenas until August 30th!
The post contains several FAQ questions about in-game rewards and unlocks as well as confirming that after August 30th, Heavy Metal Machines will be fully offline and unplayable. As noted by TrueAchievements.com, this will make the game’s full set of Achievements/Trophies unobtainable. On the social side of things, the game’s Discord server will remain open for the time being and the team will host one final developer livestream on Thursday, May 5th.
Based on the game’s SteamDB charts, it’s easy to guess one reason behind their decision. Despite supporting Heavy Metal Machines for over seven years, the game saw its all-time peak of 442 players way back in 2017. Although it saw a bit of a resurgence in 2020, active player counts on Steam have been below 50 daily players for nearly the last year. For an exclusively multiplayer title it just wasn’t able to get the audience in needed.
Thanks to Wakayama_PT for submitting the news today. I’ve added the date to the Watch List calendar and will have a page up on the site later.