After more than two years, the Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit developer Velan Studios today announced it would be shutting down its free-to-play multiplayer brawler Knockout City on 6th June this year - with Season 9 to be the "final season" for the game.

Although it's had over 12 million players, it has been unable to "attract and retain" enough players to make it sustainable. It's also been a massive learning curve for the studio, which is new to live service games, and therefore it's made the tough decision to end support.

Velan Studios will move forward by "innovating" - with hopes to continue exploring new experiences for Knockout City as well as other IP and products, some of which the team is "very excited about".

"While we can’t promise that Knockout City will be back, what we can promise is that you’ll continue to see new and innovative games from Velan Studios that will surprise and delight players around the world."

For more details about Season 9, you can check out a detailed FAQ over on the game's website. It'll kick off on 28th February 2023. On the same date, all "real-money" transactions will be removed from the game.

On a more positive note, after the server shut down on 6th June, Velan will be releasing a standalone player-hosted version of the game for Windows PCs - so even after the servers go offline Knockout City can continue to be enjoyed by fans.

How do you feel about this shut down? Comment below.

[source knockoutcity.com]