Sony has temporarily closed the LittleBigPlanet servers, as players reported having abusive messages sent to them from hackers. In a short statement on the LittleBigPlanet Twitter account, the company explains it does “not take these attacks lightly, especially when they target our loyal community members.”
The LittleBigPlanet community has recently faced an ever growing issue with abusive hackers. Fans had started posting their complaints and findings under #SaveLBP and #FixLBP on Twitter. A common theme is hackers setting up fake warning messages to appear on random players’ screens. While some seem to reference inside jokes between hackers, others are extremely transphobic and generally hateful in nature. The abuse appears to have ramped up in the past 24 hours, likely why Sony made the decision to halt online activity while it addresses the issue.
Feedback on the servers being taken down is overwhelmingly positive, with many fans relieved that this issue could finally be fixed. Since the abuse began to get even more prevalent, many had been urging players to take a break from LittleBigPlanet, suggesting it was affecting many fans.
There have been no further statements at the time of writing, and no mention of when fans can expect the servers to go back online. It appears that the issue was brought to the developer’s attention yesterday, as that is when the official Twitter account first makes mention of the attacks.
Unfortunately for fans, this isn’t the first time their online play has been interpreted this year. Last March, is was reported that the real reason the servers were taken down was that a single aggrieved fan had orchestrated a DDOS attack. This was apparently in retaliation to Sony’s recent treatment of the LittleBigPlanet franchise, as the last main installment was all the way back in 2014, with the release of LittleBigPlanet 3.
LittleBigPlanet originally released for PS3 in 2008, and has seen several sequels and spin offs since. Most recently was Sackboy: A Big Adventure, for PS4 and PS5.