Fangs For The Memories: Bloodhunt Servers to Shut Down
- Sharkmob will shut down Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt servers on April 28, 2026, citing low player numbers.
- The stylish vampire battle royale, set in the World of Darkness universe, launched in 2022 but couldn’t sustain development.
- Despite a loyal community, Sharkmob has no plans for XP boosts or preservation, echoing concerns from the Stop Killing Games movement.
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Another One Bites The Dust
Bloodhunt, the vampire battle royale developed and published by Sharkmob, is set to throw open the curtains on its creatures of the night in April next year. At which point, everything will turn to dust and remain as nothing but a memory for the players who embraced the online multiplayer’s spin on Vampire: The Masquerade.
Launched in April 2022 as a PS5 Exclusive, Bloodhunt is a free-to-play title that pits rival vampire clans against each other on the streets of Prague. Players can wield supernatural abilities like teleportation and blood magic, as well as customize characters with stylish outfits.
However, in a recent announcement posted to its site, Sharkmob has said that player numbers are not high enough to keep the game going: “Your feedback, creativity, and enthusiasm for our game has meant the world to us. However, despite you, our amazing community, the current player population has reached a level where keeping the servers running is no longer sustainable.”
“The game will remain fully playable until the 28th of April 2026. After this date, the servers will be taken offline, and the game will no longer be available on either PC or PlayStation 5.”
World of Darkness
Bloodhunt is set in the same universe as the recently released Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, and even features the same core clans as that title. The World of Darkness is a vast supernatural realm that first appeared as a TTRPG in 1991, and has since gone on to include multiple spin-off books and worlds.
It’s also been used as the basis for other video games, although Bloodhunt is the only multiplayer one; Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption (2000) had multiplayer capabilities but was at its core a single-player RPG. There’s also a Skyrim mod of this game, Vampire: The Masquerade – Reawakened, coming out next year but it’s currently only single-player.
As for Bloodhunt, the news of the impending shutdown shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to loyal players, as Sharkmob announced back in May 2023 that it would be stopping active development on the game.
“Ever since launch, we have been on a journey to excite and delight our players, however, while we have an amazing and very engaged community, we haven’t been able to reach the critical mass needed to sustain development.”
“With that said, Bloodhunt servers will stay up and the game will remain available to play. Our aim is to keep the servers going for as long as we have an active player base and community.”
The Game Hungers For New Blood
Games getting and then retaining players is not a new issue, although how a developer handles it varies. Digital Cybercherries, the studio behind Hypercharge: Unboxed and the forthcoming Don’t Scream Together, publicly stated that it’s happy having a small number of players enjoy its games, if those players are really into it.
Meanwhile, Voidmaw, the developer behind Katanaut, expressed frustration at the wide gulf between the pre-release wishlist number (over 50,000) and the post-release player count (around 11). Luckily, this has started to turn around with a fresh influx of new players.
The shutdown comment from Sharkmob concerning a lack of players is unusual, too, as by all accounts it still has a loyal fanbase, with a modest peak average of 480 players on PC; PS5 player stats are not publicly listed.
Even so, the official Discord has 114,335 members, with 11,553 people active at the time of writing – although to be fair this channel is also for Sharkmob’s forthcoming game, the Crysis-like Exobourne. This held a playtest earlier this month and is a live service extraction shooter.
Even The Undead Need Life Support
Bloodhunt being sunset also ties into concerns related to the Stop Killing Games (SKG) initiative, which is trying to ensure games have end-of-life support. While SKG is still ongoing it’s making good headway (it recently reported that “out of 1,448,270 signatures, 689,035 are already verified, and 15 countries have met their thresholds,”) and some studios have already put plans in place for their games to continue on in the hands of the community.
Since a precedent has now been set, this has prompted players to ask if a similar thing could be put in place for Bloodhunt. Sharkmob, however, has declined to answer any of these queries, along with requests for the game to at least allow for 2x or 3x XP so existing players can get the most out of Bloodhunt before it fully dies.
Eneba reached out to Sharkmob to ask how many players it would need to warrant keeping the servers going, and also if it has any end-of-life plans for Bloodhunt, but was told “I’m afraid that we can’t add more to this than the statement on Bloodhunt’s official website.”
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