About two weeks from now on July 18th, the online servers for Gravity Rush 2 are scheduled to be taken down, only 1.5 years after the game’s release. If you’re not sure what this means for the game, you can find an overview of features the game will end up losing later on in this article. Like last time, we’re once again reaching out to Sony with our #DontForgetGravityRush campaign, asking them to keep the game’s servers online! And if that’s really not an option for them, we’d still like to ask them to at least unlock the Dusty Token items for new players instantly, and make treasure chests appear much more frequently when the servers are offline. These are two things that would ensure new players can at least obtain all the items currently locked behind the online functionality.
Why keep the servers online?
You may ask why we’d want to keep the servers online for a game that is primarily still an offline single-player experience? For one, we can simply expect better from a company like Sony when it comes to supporting their own games. Even less successful games usually keep their servers online for at least a few years. Secondly, as it stands this will mostly impact players that purchase the game in the future. The influx of new players using the online functionality remains fairly stable (as the chart below shows), hovering between 200-300 new users every day. That’s still a lot of people who will suddenly find it impossible to obtain dozens of in-game items, and who won’t get to experience the online functionality that connected players around the world via challenges, photo reviews and treasure hunts.
How can you help?
There are a number of ways we’re reaching out to Sony. Below you can find the details. Thanks in advance for your support!
#DontForgetGravityRush on Twitter
Like last time, for Twitter the idea is to send a message to several PlayStation accounts with the hashtag #DontForgetGravityRush, asking them (politely) to keep the servers online or to patch the game the game to make sure new players have access to the otherwise locked items. If possible, adding a screenshot from the game is a good way of making the tweet stand out!
The accounts we’re looking to contact are @SonyJapanStudio, @JapanStudio_JP @ShawnLayden @yosp. I wouldn’t advise contacting the game’s developers on their personal Twitter accounts, as obviously they’re not the ones making these decisions and they’d probably prefer to continue supporting the game if they could. Here you can see some of the tweets people have already been sending out:
#DontForgetGravityRush on Facebook
On Facebook, you can help by liking, sharing and/or replying to the post below to show your support! Leaving a polite comment helps to make your message more personal.
#DontForgetGravityRush on YouTube
SIE Japan Studio’s YouTube channel has a Discussion tab where you can leave a comment, asking them not to take down the servers or patch the game.
Overview of online modes and in-game items being removed
To conclude the article, here’s an overview of all the features that will be removed from Gravity Rush 2 if Sony shuts down the servers and doesn’t make any updates to the game.
Sending/Receiving Challenges: You’ll no longer be able to challenging other players (random or friends) to beat your “ghost” in a Challenge. These challenges can currently be accessed via the menu, or appear as “Gold” Kats in the game world.
Browse ranking: Both the worldwide Dusty Tokens charts and all of the 20 in-game Challenge leaderboards are being removed. You’ll no longer be able to see how your score compares to the rest of the world. This is notable because Gravity Rush Remastered’s online ranking remains active.
Receiving and posting Treasure Hunts: This is probably the most popular online mode, where you can search for the location of treasure chests by means of a photo taken by another player. Think of the photo as the equivalent of a treasure map.
Receiving, posting and reviewing photos: You can take photos in-game and then upload them for others to review. These appear as “blue” Kats throughout the game world. By interacting with them, you can vote whether or not you like the photo. This will also be removed.
Earning Dusty Tokens and rewards: Dusty Tokens are earned by participating in some of the above online modes. There are 10 unique rewards that can be unlocked this way, including a talisman that allows for infinite shifting. Sony made it clear that new players won’t be able to unlock these rewards after the online servers have been decommissioned.
Undocumented changes (not mentioned by Sony):
Ghosts of the Fallen: If you die in the dungeon-like “Delvool Trench Mine” challenges (consisting of 50 layers, each with their own challenge), your ghost would be left behind, along with half of the items you had collected so far. Other players could find your ghost and collect those items. When the online servers go down, you’ll no longer encounter ghosts from other players.
Treasure Chest items: there are a total of 58 unique in-game items that can be found in treasure chests. Without the online “Treasure Hunts” functionality, finding these becomes an unreasonably difficult task.
I honestly adore the French inspired architecture and accent of the dialogue, the soundtrack is stirring, and the gameplay is just addicting. The most fun free roaming since Spiderman 2! I love this community’s dedication to the game and hope for the best!
We must keep these amazing features in this wonderful game alive !!!
Much of my fun was from the community and the online components. They were food ideas so don’t abandon them Sony.
Plllleeeeeaaasssseee….