Knockout City developer Velan Studios has announced that the servers will be shut down following the release of Season 9 and that the game will no longer be playable from June 6. While the studio has claimed that this was an "extremely difficult decision" to make, it was also apparently "a necessary and important one." Season 9 of Knockout City will kick off on February 28, but it will be the game's final batch of content before being shut down completely.
It's not all bad news though, especially for those of you don't want the game to go away forever. Velan Studios has stated in a blog post on the Knockout City website that a private server version of the game will be set up on PC, meaning the game will be in some kind of playable state even after the game is shut down. Velen Studios will also be hosting a two week celebration called "Thanks for the KOs" right before the shutdown, which will feature tournaments, giveaways, and a bunch of other content.
Alongside the announcement, Velan Studios also put out a surprisingly honest video about the reasons behind the cancellation. According to game director Jeremy Russo, the team at Velen Studios simply couldn't keep up with the demands of the game's audience and have struggled to retain a playerbase, even after going free-to-play. Russo also explains that the team's small size means that it doesn't have the resources possible to attempt to draw players back in.
It might be the end for Knockout City, but it doesn't seem to be the end of Velen Studios. In the video, Russo speaks quite excitedly about the future and how the past couple of years has helped the devs learn and grow. He doesn't rule out the possibility of more Knockout City titles in the future, but Russo also says that the team will use what its learned in "other exciting projects." Russo doesn't give any more hints about Velen's next game than that, but it sounds like we won't be waiting to long to find out what it might be.