Props to this decade-old fighting game for moving to new servers instead of shutting down in 2023

(Image credit: Rare)

It's become so common to see online games switched off entirely that we actually compiled a list of all the big games that shut down last year. It sometimes feels risky to get too attached to any kind of online multiplayer game these days; as soon as a line on an earnings graph dips too low, the servers get unplugged.

But Killer Instinct is bucking that trend (via Time Extension). The fighting game reboot that originally hit PC seven years ago has responded to issues with its legacy server infrastructure by, get this, migrating to new ones! A quality of life update for the game released last week that begins the process of moving Killer Instinct over to a new server backend.

"Over the last five years," read the update, "it has become more challenging to deal with issues that crop up due to KI’s reliance on legacy services". So the game's makers have "started migrating KI’s legacy services to PlayFab services, a process which will happen over the next several months".

If you're still a Killer Instinct stalwart, you might run into load times lasting "40-60 seconds, but potentially minutes depending on your connection speed," and a warning that the game is "Refreshing DLC Timeout" next time you play, but otherwise the game should be the same as it ever was. The quality of life update has also added a couple of PC-specific fixes: both players will no longer lose points after one of them leaves Ranked mode on Steam, and all characters should now be unlocked for players on Game Pass.

When you consider that this version of Killer Instinct actually released a full 10 years ago—only the PC version came out in 2016—and this server shift applies to all platforms, it's honestly quite heartening (okay, they have Microsoft money, but still). I mean, maybe it shouldn't be impressive that a game isn't simply shutting its doors forever as soon as it reaches a certain age, but these are the times we live in. Now if only everyone else could do the same.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.