Evil Dead: The Game seems to be going the way of many asymmetrical multiplayer horror games as of late. At time of writing, I’ve verified that the game remains on the Xbox marketplace, but it has been delisted on nearly every other platform and service that it was once available on.
The game features some single-player content, but the bulk of the gameplay and user engagement was in the multiplayer mode, and though the team at Saber Interactive claim that they will be keeping the servers running for players that currently own the game, it’s my opinion that the servers will likely not last much longer if similar games are to be studied in comparison.
Much like 2017’s Friday the 13th: The Game, which maintained a bit of a small cult following until its eventual dedicated server shut-downs in 2020, or Capcom’s attempt with 2020s Resident Evil Resistance, which was quickly abandoned by the developers and left in the hands of hackers and modders that ruined the online experience for all but the current 30 or so players still online today, Evil Dead: The Game seems to be dead in the water.
The official statement from the publisher reads as follows:
“We can confirm we’ve begun the process of removing the game from digital storefronts”
“Anyone who has purchased the game will still be able to play it as we plan to keep our servers online for everyone.”
“We want to extend a sincere thank you to our community, to those who have been part of the game from the very beginning, and those who have recently joined us. We appreciate all of your support.”
The difference between Evil Dead: The Game and many other games in the genre, however, is that the developers at Saber Interactive seemed to put in quite a bit of effort to get the game into the hands of more players, as well as improve the experience for current players with updates, patches, and added content throughout the nearly 3 year life of the game.
Due to this continued active support from the developers, many fans have speculated that perhaps it’s a license expiration that’s to blame with the third anniversary of the game’s release rapidly approaching. Unfortunately, after pouring through the data, I’m starting to believe the issue lies elsewhere.
Evil Dead: The Game‘s highest concurrent player count on Steam was 586 players, and at time of writing there are around 35 playing online now. It seems more likely that the near decade of continued overwhelming popularity and massive success of the biggest asymmetrical multiplayer horror game in the world, Dead by Daylight, is the cause of many of these titles not succeeding.
DBD’s highest concurrent Steam player count was over 105k, with success partly due to the licenses held by Dead by Daylight, including classic film villains like Freddy Krueger, Ghost Face, Michael Meyers, and many more, including, and here’s the real kicker, an Evil Dead update featuring its main protagonist Ash Williams.
This, coupled with their ever-growing library of video game and television tie-ins like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Stranger Things, it will take a tremendous amount of ingenuity or luck on the part of whatever development team decides to tackle this undertaking next. But hey, maybe it really is a license expiration that Saber didn’t feel was worth renewing. I’m leaning towards a combination of the two.
If you own Evil Dead: The Game, then play it while you can, and if you want to try it out before it’s gone for the foreseeable future, then head on over to the Xbox marketplace and grab it soon. Surely Saber Interactive will provide more details on server status and the like in the coming months, and we can update you then.
