Proletariat's Spellbreak lives on as a free, player-run game

Developers from Proletariat recently posted a free version of the studio's battle royale shooter, Spellbreak. Subtitled as a "Community Version," players can now host their own servers to replay the game, which was taken offline last year.

"Like many of you, we were sad to see the development of Spellbreak come to a close," wrote the developers. "To help memorialize [it], we created a standalone version."

Spellbreak was initially released in 2020 to strong reviews but lacked a large audience at the time. In 2022, Proletariat was acquired by Blizzard and put on World of Warcraft, making the magical game its last original project.

To help with the revival, players have taken it upon themselves to create a launcher (dubbed "Elemental Fracture") that makes it easier to run. And as Aftermath notes, the community set up a Discord to host daily and weekly games and keep everyone together.

"We want to bring our Spellbreak community together to resurrect the game we love," reads the Elemental Fracture website, "[and] we wholeheartedly welcome you to our community."

Different ways to keep a game alive

Spellbreak's revival follows on from Ubisoft's recent decision to create offline modes for The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest. In the case of those games, the decision was motivated by players who were concerned the games would be taken offline without warning, as with the first The Crew.

A study from last year revealed 87 percent of games released pre-2010 were unable to be preserved. More recent games may be better off, but many online titles have been shut down in recent years with no way to play them again.

Grassroots preservation efforts have sprung up to curb the larger issue, and what Proletariat is doing helps, in its own way. Not every studio (or the developers who worked there) has the chance to put their once-defunct game in players' hands.