Earlier this week, developer Sumo Digital announced that LittleBigPlanet 3‘s servers will never come back online. Fans are understandably angry about this because the unexpected closure of the game means user-created levels that haven’t been downloaded are now lost forever.
Only levels stored on a PS3 or PS4 somewhere in the world have survived by some happy mistake, but more could have been done with just a little warning or assistance.
Unexpected LittleBigPlanet 3 server shutdown cuts fans out completely
LittleBigPlanet 3‘s servers were taken offline in January 2024 due to “ongoing technical issues,” though the specific issue was never confirmed. Sumo Digital cites these issues as the reason the game’s servers are now permanently offline.
With no prior warning or notice period before the servers were shut down, fans and preservationists were unable to download all the user-created levels so they could be enjoyed and studied in the future. Naturally, fans are furious about the years of lost content.
LittleBigPlanet 3 had the most advanced creation tools in the franchise and allowed players to build full game levels, animations, and experiences for anyone to download. It was also the last game in the series that was still live with this sharing function.
In response to this news, players on Reddit have pointed out that there are private servers that allow you to access the game’s online element. However, the number of levels preserved is nothing compared to those that are now presumably lost forever.
Interestingly, as broadcast by LBP Union on Twitter, while the game’s servers are down, the server specifically responsible for storing user-generated content, the Resource Server, is still up and operational. This means that the levels saved on it are still there, but it’s not known what will happen to them or the server.
Keeping a game’s servers live has an inherent cost for a game developer, and that cost gets harder to justify when the player base gets smaller each year. However, providing an endpoint for a game’s online functionality, as has been the case with many recent server closures, has allowed fans to relive the experiences they love one more time before they’re gone.
The permanent shutdown of LittleBigPlanet 3‘s servers without notice feels almost as harsh as Ubisoft revoking licenses for The Crew following its server shutdown. It’s the end of an era for these titles that felt incredibly innovative upon release but always had this destination in their future. In both cases, though, there’s certainly something to be said about purchasing a product that’s now had much of its appeal actively removed without any offer of compensation.
