Super Mario Maker fans got to say goodbye to their game, but Sony just unceremoniously pulled the plug on LittleBigPlanet and 16 years of community creations
Apr. 19, 2024The temporary shutdown is now permanent
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It’s a bad time to enjoy platformers built on community level creations, as LittleBigPlanet 3 servers have shut down just a week aftersupport for Wii U servers and Super Mario Maker were killed. But while Nintendo fans got to say goodbye to their game, the death of LittleBigPlanet came as a sudden shock.
It’s an unceremonious end for a 16 year legacy of community content. Any such server shutdown comes as an ultimately understandable business decision, but equally, they’re all distressing blows for game preservation. The timing means I can’t help but think of the Super Mario Maker shutdown, which players had loads of advance notice for, leading toone of the coolest community efforts in recent memory.
Meanwhile, LittleBigPlanet - a more robust creation engine that predated Mario Maker by years - dies with a whimper. Community membersare reportingthat resource servers, the servers that actually house levels and other player-made content, are currently still online, but with the game servers offline there’s no way to access them. Still, some are holding out a faint glimmer of hope that maybe those levels will come back someday. I know I’ve got my fingers crossed for a LittleBigPlanet revival down the line, but I can’t help feeling this is truly the end for one of PlayStation’s greatest games.
There are plenty ofupcoming PS5 gamesfor you to enjoy in the near future before it all turns to despair in another decade.
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