Knockout City is shutting down after struggling to retain players

Velan Studios is shutting down Knockout City on June 6, 2023, just over two years after it launched.

The free-to-play dodgebrawler debuted in May 2021 and has attracted over 12 million players to-date, but Velan said the live game business has also been immensely challenging.

The studio has struggled to retain enough players to be sustainable in the long-term, noting that, as a small indie outfit, it simply doesn't have the bandwidth required to adequately support and iterate on the title.

"There are several aspects of the game in need of major disruption to better attract and retain enough players to be sustainable. Since we are a small, indie studio, it’s simply impossible for us to make those kinds of systemic changes in the live game while continuing to support it," reads a blog post.

"So it became clear to us that we needed to take a step back and pave the way for Velan to do what we do best by innovating. Now we can take everything we learned, everything that succeeded and everything that needs improvement, and get to work on exploring new possible experiences for Knockout City and other games and products we are very excited about.

Velan said it hopes to use lessons learned from the project to create a new title in the Knockout City universe, and will be conducting a "comprehensive retrospective" on every aspect of the game to prepare itself for the challenge.

Although the Knockout City servers are being switched off on June 6, Velan intends to launch a private server version on PC so the title can "live on forever" in some form.

You can find out more about the impending shut down on the Knockout City website.