Star Wars Hunters’ Shutdown Shouldn’t Be the End-All Be-All…

In 2021, the mobile game developer Zynga announced that it was working on a new PvP hero shooter called Star Wars: Hunters. Developed in collaboration with Zynga subsidiary NaturalMotion Games, Star Wars: Hunters was presented as an alternative to Overwatch and Apex Legends. Much like those games, it was a free-to-play, team-based multiplayer shooter, but instead of being in first-person, it could only be played from a third-person perspective. Zynga and NaturalMotion were originally targeting a 2021 release for Star Wars: Hunters, but, due to several delays, it would not launch until June 4, 2024.

Despite being based on an incredibly popular franchise, Star Wars: Hunter s didn't receive much attention from mainstream media outlets when it first came out. The game did not get a lot of reviews from professional critics, and the few it did receive weren't glowing. With that said, Star Wars: Hunters' user review scores were considerably more positive. On the App Store, for example, the game received a 4.5/5 rating from more than 1.7k reviewers. Although it had its fans, Star Wars: Hunters was unable to attract a large-enough playerbase in the long run.

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By Dominik Bošnjak

Star Wars: Hunters' Failure Isn't Proof that a Star Wars Hero Shooter Can't Work

Star Wars: Hunters is Being Shut Down Just a Year After Its Release

Earlier this month, Zynga and NaturalMotion announced that Star Wars: Hunters would be permanently shutting down on October 1, 2025, just one year after it initially came out. This decision came as a bit of a surprise to some fans; even though the game wasn't that popular, it still seemed like it had some life left in it. Zynga was actively developing major new content for the game until only recently, and it was even planning to bring it to PC later this year. However, in spite of the fact that Star Wars: Hunters currently has a store page on Steam, the port will never be released. Zynga didn't even give Star Wars: Hunters the opportunity to attract new players on PC before pulling the plug.

Sadly, Star Wars: Hunters isn't the only recent live-service game that has had a shockingly short lifespan. Over the last few months, several other online-only titles, such as Spectre Divide and Concord, have been shut down just months, if not weeks, after their initial launches. Although Star Wars: Hunters wasn't able to last very long, its failure doesn't necessarily indicate that there isn't an audience for Star Wars hero shooters in the industry. Zynga's ill-fated project was a solid enough game, but there were several aspects that significantly held it back from fulfilling its true potential.

Limited Platform Availability and a Lack of Recognizable Characters Held Star Wars: Hunters Back from Success

One of the biggest problems with Star Wars: Hunters was that it wasn't available on all platforms. The game made its debut exclusively on Nintendo Switch and mobile devices. Star Wars: Hunters' planned PC port was never released, and any potential Xbox and PlayStation versions were never announced. Live-service titles like Star Wars: Hunters typically benefit a lot from being accessible to as large an audience as possible, so the fact that Zynga didn't prioritize getting the game on all platforms was a big oversight.

In addition to this, Star Wars: Hunters also suffered from a lack of popular characters. All the playable heroes in the game were created specifically for this title, and they had never really appeared in any prior Star Wars media. The absence of recognizable faces within Star Wars: Hunters' roster of heroes deprived the game of that distinctive Star Wars touch. Star Wars: Hunters should have appealed to casual Star Wars fans by including playable characters that they were actually familiar with, like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. If Zynga had played its cards properly, a Star Wars multiplayer shooter with a cast of heroes like this could have been as successful as Marvel Rivals.