Killer Instinct's online mode pulled down by a hacker, leaving players unable to play ranked matches

sportskeeda.com:

Microsoft's rebooted rendition of the acclaimed fighting game series Killer Instinct is by no means a mainstream behemoth. Yet, it continues to be doted upon, even almost a decade later, by the FGC (fighting game community). Unfortunately, it has lately been the target of a joy kill hacker who has taken down the online modes for the game on Xbox and Microsoft Store.

Since its launch, the game has seen immense love from fans, with a dedicated playerbase especially present on Xbox. With the game's ranked mode officially hacked, players' enjoyment has been halted.

At this point, it is unclear when the servers will go back online. The game's last major support was back in 2018 - a whole four years ago. With the game no longer under developer Iron Galaxy's jurisdiction, it is up to publisher Microsoft now.

But it is uncertain whether a relatively niche game is worth allocating resources to at this point from the publisher's business perspective. Considering the tech giant has been very forward and consumer-friendly regarding its gaming division, there is still a shred of hope.

However, it still brings to mind the situation with Titanfall 2, the 2016 sci-fi FPS from publisher EA and developer Respawn Studios. The game's online kept getting DDoSed by hackers, rendering the official multiplayer a barren wasteland as players could not connect to play.

The situation has improved but still took longer than it should have. Players, in the meantime, resorted to using Northstar, a third-party client, for online matchmaking.

Note that Killer Instinct's blight does not affect the Steam version of the game, as it has its separate leaderboards. But as a whole, this incident is still disheartening. Fans have taken to Twitter to complain about