[mrmichaelt]

^D'oh!!!

Illfonic hasn't been streaming live on Twitch. Has anything been said on their Discord?

[timeware]

With the Switch 2 reveal does anyone know if Illfonic has plans to release Spirits Unleashed for the new console, or just leave the current switch version as is?

[Murdock]

Nah, this discord has been quiet, except for the player base talking and such. No word from Illfonic theirself.

Also I doubt they will release it on the switch 2, but that's just my opinion.

[zeta otaku]

^D'oh!!!

Illfonic hasn't been streaming live on Twitch. Has anything been said on their Discord?

There's been nothing but radio silence. My guess things are still chaotic over there and they're still trying to figure out how to move forward without revealing too much behind the scenes stuff if there was a major shake up.

With the Switch 2 reveal does anyone know if Illfonic has plans to release Spirits Unleashed for the new console, or just leave the current switch version as is?

The game is basically in it's sunset phase, I doubt they'd put that kind of effort into remaking the game to run on the newer hardware when the Switch 2 is fully capable of running Switch 1 games (well, most of them, there are a few exceptions, but that's due to the accessories needed to play them like Ring Fit not being compatible with the new joycons). After we get the final update (IF we get the final update that is) I wouldn't expect much except maybe some bug fixes and the like to keep the servers running until they're told to shut it all down.

[timeware]

Well the upside if it does sunset we only paid for the initial game and one DLC. I could see them doing a new "Edition" to coincide with swtich 2's launch to gain access to new players. It's wishful thinking, but it would be cool.

I can still see people playing Jump Force on the X Box even though they've sunset. I'm sure that's due to having the physical copy but it would still suck if the game becomes unavailable and people are still playing it even though it's downloaded on your console.

[zeta otaku]

I mean, aren't people still playing the 360 TVG multiplayer?

While it may be difficult for consoles to connect, I know there are a few fans in the VERY early days of planning fan servers when/if the game gets it's servers pulled for PC players.

[Chicken, He Clucked]

Without checking steam numbers, my hunch is Spirits Unleashed is one of their more popular and successful games. So whatever resource they have available will hopefully ensure the servers stay up even if content has or will end shortly. The last update was a good one to end on anyway with the overall quality of life improvements. It would be a shame but I’m not banking on Boogie making it in at this point given the studio trouble. Killer Klowns looked fun but I couldn’t bring myself to take the plunge at full price and it didn’t seem to gain any traction. I’m guessing it underperformed.

[timeware]

Killer Clowns probably didn't gain traction because they forgot to add the pizza girl from the montage. Lol.

[zeta otaku]

Without checking steam numbers, my hunch is Spirits Unleashed is one of their more popular and successful games. So whatever resource they have available will hopefully ensure the servers stay up even if content has or will end shortly. The last update was a good one to end on anyway with the overall quality of life improvements. It would be a shame but I’m not banking on Boogie making it in at this point given the studio trouble. Killer Klowns looked fun but I couldn’t bring myself to take the plunge at full price and it didn’t seem to gain any traction. I’m guessing it underperformed.

You can't go by steam numbers if you're looking for popularity of the game. Remember, it's on EVERYTHING at this point and we don't have access to those numbers. that said, I've found that whenever I matchmake, more often than not, I get matched up with at least one person.

[Bison256]

Well the upside if it does sunset we only paid for the initial game and one DLC. I could see them doing a new "Edition" to coincide with swtich 2's launch to gain access to new players. It's wishful thinking, but it would be cool.

I can still see people playing Jump Force on the X Box even though they've sunset. I'm sure that's due to having the physical copy but it would still suck if the game becomes unavailable and people are still playing it even though it's downloaded on your console.

in theory they could do the same model some PlayStation 4 games had when the PlayStation 5 came out where companies released next Gen patches for owners of PS4 copies. They have the higher resolution textures and models already.

[BatDan]

Its worries like the aforementioned where they need to start making linear games for some of these IPs

The new Evil dead and Friday the 13th games suffered a dark fate because of this fad of making “online maps” styles—where relying on the server is the lifeforce of the game—and part of me feels a little scammed of my money.

When i pay for a game—i expect to come back and play it whenever I want..forever.

Dont get me wrong i love Spirits Unleashed. And im loving playing as Slimer and haunting up locations.

Its sad to think our copies of GB on NES will be more playable on our retro consoles 10 years from now than the inevitable fate that awaits GBSU.

[timeware]

My top loader still works but my original NES only wants to play Mario Bros. 3 for five minutes until it shuts down. Lol. I don't think any of our NES systems will be working ten years from now.

[BatDan]

The games will. Put them in a Retron or a RetroBit.

My point is a copy of SmB3 is still fully functioning on a working console with fresh pins more than a copy of Friday the 13th for Switch.

[mrmichaelt]

Layoffs were one thing but now that there's not a movie coming out this year, Sony is probably pumping the brake and we won't get to see see SU rolling into a Year 3. Just give us the Boogieman winter update. It's sad but even without a movie, we've seen the short life of past games like GB World and Beeline lasting just as long.

I'm not that in the know about video games but you know how shows don't get renewed then years later they come back for a season or two, that ever happen to a video game? In theory, Illfonic keeps the assets. Say no new content after this winter one. But then a few years later when the next movie comes out, they could go back to Illfonic and continue with more updates?

[timeware]

Are we just speculating about a sunset date here? Duke Nukem Forever was in developmental hell for a while, but yeah MMO's that have come back from sunset status: RuneScape, EverQuest, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and most recently, "City of Heroes" which was rebooted as "Champions Online"

I'd hope with the switch 2 coming out that could breath a little bit of new life into SU, especially if the animated movies art styles look or resemble the SU game. GTA online is still going but who knows what that's going to look like with the release of GTA 6 later this year.

I'd imagine there would still be people too involved with GTA 5 to want to give up their assets to start all over with GTA 6 online. I'd like to think Rockstar would have plans to combine the GTA 5 and 6 online maps with very little game style change.

It would be nice to have a fresh start for newbies though.

[mrmichaelt]

The silence going on 3 weeks since Christmas is worrisome. Add up all the other factors I mentioned. Worse case scenario, they don't release the winter update (they could have been told to stop work on it the same time as the layoffs). Ok case scenario, we get the winter update and that's a wrap. Best case scenario, we were worrying about nothing and more updates are one the way.

[Kingpin]

Duke Nukem Forever was in developmental hell for a while,

Not seeing how Duke Nukem's circumstances are relevant here.

but yeah MMO's that have come back from sunset status: RuneScape, EverQuest, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and most recently, "City of Heroes" which was rebooted as "Champions Online"

Those aren't comparable examples because Spirits Unleashed isn't an MMO.

I'd hope with the switch 2 coming out that could breath a little bit of new life into SU, especially if the animated movies art styles look or resemble the SU game.

Unless the animated film or movie employed the character artists from Spirits Unleashed, there's no reason to expect there'd be any resemblance in the character designs.

GTA online is still going but who knows what that's going to look like with the release of GTA 6 later this year.

That's a poor comparison because you're comparing a franchise whose online gaming releases are usually "events" in the gaming industry, and who has several major hits from that franchise over the past couple of decades, against a much smaller studio, with a game series consisting of one game (along with a handful of other titles based on licenced IPs).

That's like comparing an apple to a whole orange tree.

I'd imagine there would still be people too involved with GTA 5 to want to give up their assets to start all over with GTA 6 online. I'd like to think Rockstar would have plans to combine the GTA 5 and 6 online maps with very little game style change.

What does that have to do with the price of cheese? Or, for that matter, Spirits Unleashed?

I think the most accurate yardstick we'll be able to find to make guesses at when Spirits Unleashed could go into sunset, will be Illfonic's backcatalogue of titles. We can look at how long those remained online, and make a few educated gueses. Whereas I think the results can become more sporadic if we used examples from entirely different studios... Concord is an infamous example of why we should limit the scope of the examples we use.

[timeware]

I used Nukem as an example of an old game still being able to be played, but it’s online features are dead, and near sunset. I bought it for less then three bucks as the series S doesn’t play physical games. I was remembering how fun Duke Matches were and the bonus was being able to finish up Dukes Digs features. If you’re lucky you could end up waiting two hours to find a match if at all.

Imagine this being the case for SU. just walking around the fire house and not having access to even bot led jobs. I’m surprised Nukem’s servers are still up honestly.

Yes the games I listed were MMO’s but they were games that sunset and came back. That’s still an example of what Mrmichaelt was looking for.

What does that have to do with the price of cheese? Or, for that matter, Spirits Unleashed?

GTA Online is a popular online game. While not facing a layoff situation GTA players could still face the possibility of Rockstar closing down GTA 5online to focus on GTA 6 online. Similar circumstances. I doubt that will happen but it may phase out eventually with how well GTA 6 sells. I would imagine allowing GTA 5 players to transfer assets would be a wise decision though.

[Kingpin]

just walking around the fire house and not having access to even bot led jobs.

I don't believe there's any danger of that, if I'm remembering things correctly; I believe Illfonic said that if and when the online co-op for Spirits Unleashed permanently goes offline, we can still play the game... But it'd only be with the bots.

Yes the games I listed were MMO’s but they were games that sunset and came back.

As I said before, those are highly profitable games with substantially-sized fanbases, I don't believe Spirits Unleashed is on a scale of profitable that would lead to Illfonic, or another company to look into reviving if after it eventually sunsets.

GTA Online is a popular online game. While not facing a layoff situation GTA players could still face the possibility of Rockstar closing down GTA 5online to focus on GTA 6 online. Similar circumstances. I doubt that will happen but it may phase out eventually with how well GTA 6 sells. I would imagine allowing GTA 5 players to transfer assets would be a wise decision though.

Okay... I still think that isn't much of a basis to draw comparison from because the two studios and games are massively different to each other in terms of current financial status, popularity and profitability.
Rockstar could suffer layoffs at some point and put GTA Online offline at some point in the near or far future, Illfonic currently is experiencing layoffs... And the possibility of Spirits Unleashed going offline is a lot more plausible.

Terminal Reality, as noted previously in the thread, is probably a better studio to draw comparisons with... Other than Ghostbusters: The Video Game's multiplayer outliving the development studio.

[Murdock]

If I might throw my 2 cents in again, I think some of us are being a bit impatient here and a bit of a nervous Nellie.

I mean I get it, but same time. Keep in mind they were schedule to return back to work Jan. 6th,and the reason most likely for the delay is they are busy. Not to mention they likely won't have a stream until they have news for us.

I think as long as the servers are running and the game is playble, then it's business as usual.

[Chicken, He Clucked]

There’s the possibility they could enable peer to peer hosting on console once the servers go offline. Less reliable but would allow the game to live on once the servers shut down. I think that’s what happened to Friday 13th but I could be misremembering (Google is there, I know).

But for now let’s hope the studio is OK and the support will come. I figure Ghost Corp mustve bankrolled development with the decision to release free updates rather than charge for additional content… I feel like Illfonic could’ve doubled their money easily by charging for ghost packs and the aesthetics. It’s also ripe for a sequel.

[timeware]

I've never quite understood the reasoning behind just releasing a free for all cosmetics pack the way they did. Not complaining, it's nice to unlock some of the more difficult equipment visuals but yeah they could totally be making more with DLC packs.

[Kingpin]

It's down to how much money the development team had to work with and how many team members could be assigned to the project over any others Illfonic had in the works at the time.

[Chicken, He Clucked]

I think it was an admirable stance giving everything away for free, but having a short battle pass at the start of every DLC season to unlock the aesthetics, badges, emotes, 2x XP boosters, even stickers like in Fortnite, would've been a better idea for keeping the playerbase engaged. And the main aesthetic items could still have been made available later as paid DLC. It would've been better than activating contracts imo.

The model they went with meant I just watched Twitch streams for however many hours necessary, and then did the contracts and ghost unlock challenges... and then I was kind of done other than the crazy grind for fifth tenure. So there were two extremes really... short term contracts and free updates... and then an insanely long grind to unlock tenure items. There weren't enough timed aesthetic unlocks and incentives to drive engagement outside of those. The battle pass system does work for that, sadly.

My main issue with the game now is I just suck at it and don't have the patience to master the ghosts. I should return to it soon though to give all the changes a try.

[zeta otaku]

So, looks like we can relax a bit now about the next update: it's still coming!

https://ghostbustersnews.com/2025/01/23 ... oming-dlc/

[Wafflerobot]

I think it was an admirable stance giving everything away for free, but having a short battle pass at the start of every DLC season to unlock the aesthetics, badges, emotes, 2x XP boosters, even stickers like in Fortnite, would've been a better idea for keeping the playerbase engaged. And the main aesthetic items could still have been made available later as paid DLC. It would've been better than activating contracts imo.

The model they went with meant I just watched Twitch streams for however many hours necessary, and then did the contracts and ghost unlock challenges... and then I was kind of done other than the crazy grind for fifth tenure. So there were two extremes really... short term contracts and free updates... and then an insanely long grind to unlock tenure items. There weren't enough timed aesthetic unlocks and incentives to drive engagement outside of those. The battle pass system does work for that, sadly.

My main issue with the game now is I just suck at it and don't have the patience to master the ghosts. I should return to it soon though to give all the changes a try.

As much as I love this game, the pacing on how stuff worked never felt quite right to me. I am not a fan of the tenure thing as someone that likes to unlock everything in games when I really enjoy them so I wanted the Tenure rewards. But losing all my upgraded Gear Contracts when I reset is a drag and put me off wanting to do it....

but then, hitting level 100 is quite easy overall and I seemed to get there within a week of casual play, so I opted to keep resetting my level until I hit the max tenure before completing all contracts. The only problem was, by the time I hit the max tenure at 100, I had my fill of the game and just stopped playing before seeing all the gadgets on offer.

Its only recently that I jumped back in and have been chipping away at the last few contracts and got to test stuff out like the RV trap and Centrifugal Thruster.

I am also not a fan of Twitch Drops. It seems counterintuitive to me to have players of an online game asked to watch other people play, rather then be online themselves and be playing with other players, to unlock stuff.

Maybe this was Illfonics way of getting viewing numbers up on those Ghostbusters SU streams on Twitch as a way to advertise the game to random people watching? I still would much prefer to unlock things by playing the game itself. Thankfully you can just leave a streaming running afk and get the rewards.

I also thought the paid DLC was an odd choice too. Selling us a way to get stuff we can earn in the game normally, isn't a new concept but I felt it was strange to do this after so much time had past and I would assume the majority of players still playing the game, like myself, had unlocked them all by that point. So for me, the only reason to get that DLC was for the new shirt patches they included with it, but I didn't think those are worth £6 so I chose not to.

Other then that though, I love everything about this game. Not because its a Ghostbusters game but because its genuinely a lot of fun. So much effort and thought seems to have gone into it and it's a shame it isn't more popular then it is.

I'm looking forward to the Boogieman DLC. I hope this game stays online for many years to come.

[Bison256]

As much as I love this game, the pacing on how stuff worked never felt quite right to me. I am not a fan of the tenure thing as someone that likes to unlock everything in games when I really enjoy them so I wanted the Tenure rewards. But losing all my upgraded Gear Contracts when I reset is a drag and put me off wanting to do it....

It's a trick to make you play the game longer. But spirits unleashed is particularly cruel. In Payday 2, for instance, all the guns and skills automatically reunlock as you level up again. In spirits unleashed you have to redo the ridiculously annoying bullshit challenges to reunlock all the gear.

[Chicken, He Clucked]

It's a trick to make you play the game longer. But spirits unleashed is particularly cruel. In Payday 2, for instance, all the guns and skills automatically reunlock as you level up again. In spirits unleashed you have to redo the ridiculously annoying bullshit challenges to reunlock all the gear.

Yeah agree. I think the research contracts were there to add more single player style missions but they’re a nuisance after tenure. There’s gear and gadgets I’ve never used still.

Gear unlocks should be tied to level.
Cosmetic and XP should’ve been battle pass or contracts.

But also ingame and/or real currency to buy premium content like customising the firehouse or unique ghost skins.

The Boogie tease is exciting. I wonder what else the update will bring.

[zeta otaku]

Cosmetics and bug fixes (as well as bugs... old and new)

[timeware]

Having DLC where you can unlock Ghostbuster avatar skins would be a nice add. Characters from Ghostbusters, Real Ghostbusters, Extreme, ATC, Etc. Being able to play as professionally rendered characters rather than DIY look alikes. It would be hella fun to play as Winston or Kat or even have them in your group of bots. That might even breath a bit of extra life into the game's longevity. Playing as Ray or Eddie would be great too.

We can play as Slimer so I don't see why that would be a huge amount of work if Illfonic is already using assets at their disposal.