LittleBigPlanet 3 nukes servers and library of player creations
LittleBigPlanet 3’s servers have been offline since January, leaving players unable to access player-created levels stored in the game’s archive. On Friday, developer Sumo Digital and publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the servers will stay offline indefinitely “due to ongoing technical issues.”
LittleBigPlanet 3 players can still play offline, with access to the campaign and user-generated creations already downloaded to their PlayStation 4 consoles. Players can still create levels, too, but won’t be able to share them. That means more than 16 years of player creations have been wiped for the majority of LittleBigPlanet 3 players — though LittleBigPlanet 3 was released in 2014, players had access to creations all the way back to LittleBigPlanet.
“We obviously share today’s news with very heavy hearts and thank you for your continued support over the years,” a LittleBigPlanet 3 representative posted from the official X account.
LittleBigPlanet 3 was released in 2014, a follow-up to 2011’s LittleBigPlanet 2 and the original LittleBigPlanet from 2008. The game itself is beloved for its creative, playful platforming campaign — but it’s user-created content is what’s given the game such an impressive lifespan. Problems began for LittleBigPlanet 3 in 2021, when servers were maliciously attacked. LittleBigPlanet 3 was eventually nixed for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, but came back online for PlayStation 4. Problems arose again in January, which led to the latest shutdown, which was supposed to be temporary.
It’s not a unique thing for older games to go offline, which can be a significant preservation problem for video games and video game history. LittleBigPlanet 3’s big problem is its lack of notice for the permanent shutdown; usually, when these types of announcements are made, there’s some time for players to say their goodbyes — whether that’s saving favorite levels or simply having one last go at the game. Nintendo did this in 2020 when it
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