We’ve got some bad news for fans of Gundam Evolution: Bandai Namco is already shutting it down, and though the company doesn’t give a particularly compelling reason, as you’ll shortly see it’s likely a simple reason: low player numbers.
“It is with great sadness that we are announcing the conclusion of GUNDAM EVOLUTION,” the studio writes. “The game’s service will end on November 29, 2023 (PST). We wanted to create a title that brought FPS fans and Gundam fans together. We challenged ourselves to create an authentic Gundam FPS game that could be played globally. Unfortunately, we have determined that it is no longer possible for us to provide a service that satisfies our players.”
Readers will recall that the game originally rolled into a free-to-play launch on Steam last fall, and the reviews were a bit all over the place. Its peak of 55K concurrent players on Steam had fallen under 2K at the top of 2023 and was barely above 1K this past month.
Bandai Namco does say that it will launch season 6 on August 23rd anyway, followed by the final season on October 25th, bringing a total of two new units and three new maps before the end. The sunset on November 29th won’t give you much time to play them, however, and will bring the game’s lifespan to an end after just over a year.
MOP’s Fight or Kite columnist Sam took a peek at the game’s launch; he thought the game’s graphics and combat were solid, but the monetization absolutely ruined the experience. MOP’s Chris also took a peek for posterity:
