Islands Of Nyne: Battle Royale ends development, becomes free
Dead, but given another chance - Nyne lives
The ferocious battle royale that is the genre itself claims yet another - futuristic last-man-standing shooter Islands Of Nyne is ending production after just a few months in early access. In a sad statement on Steam, developers Define Human Studios say they just can't afford to continue and are pulling the plug on production, but keeping the servers online for the immediate future. The game is now free, and the developers are looking into allowing players to host their own servers once the official servers shut down. Grab the game free here, and take a look at some highlights from its early access peak below.
Our last man standing Fraser Brown took a poke around Islands Of Nyne back in July, and came away generally impressed with its polished presentation, despite it not being his sort of shooter. Admittedly, it's not mine either - I like my firefights slow and heavyweight. Despite the Crysis nanosuit aesthetic on show, it's effectively a faster, twitchier Plunkbat, with a variety of contemporary weapons dressed up in slick black and red future-hex camo. Its biggest concession to its sci-fi setting is bounce pads and no fall damage, so you can bound through the air with relative ease.
It all seems like a perfectly solid competitive shooter, released at a time when everyone on the market is releasing similarly solid multiplayer games, and a pair of giants utterly dominate the market. The fact that it struggled and started losing players not long after launch isn't surprising, but that doesn't make it any less sad. I applaud Define Human for opting to make the game free instead of just pulling the plug outright. The chance of player-run servers appearing later should ensure that the game lives on and is well preserved for some time to come - fingers crossed.
Define Human are also offering refunds to anyone who bought the game recently - if you picked it up after November 29th, either on Steam or direct from the studios, you're eligible for a refund. Sadly, those who picked it up earlier in the year don't have that option, but that's one of the risks of early access. I offer my condolences to the developers, and hope that their next project, whatever it may be, turns out better for them.
Islands Of Nyne: Battle Royale is now free here on Steam. The cancellation announcement and refund details can be found here.