It's a common theme of the modern video game era that old games see their online modes switched off as their audience dwindles and new, shiner games get released – so it's refreshing to see that the Killer Instinct reboot, originally released back in 2013, is bucking the trend (thanks, Pure Xbox).
Developed by Double Helix and overseen by Iron Galaxy Games since 2014, Killer Instinct got its last content update in 2016. While it hasn't had any new features or content added since then, a small but dedicated player base has stuck by the game – and those players will be able to continue to enjoy it thanks to the fact that Iron Galaxy is migrating the title to Microsoft's Azure PlayFab servers.
"It has become more challenging to deal with issues that crop up due to KI's reliance on legacy services," the developer said. "We have been working on solutions to address these concerns. Thank you for being patient and amazing fans through any bumps in the road. We have started migrating KI’s legacy services to PlayFab services, a process which will happen over the next several months. This is a quality-of-life (QOL) update and does not have any new content or tuning changes: it ensures the game you know and love continues to provide the best possible player experience."
Based on the popular fighting game series created by UK studio Rare – which saw three games (Killer Instinct, Killer Instinct 2 and Killer Instinct Gold) in the 1990s, the 2013 reboot was released as a free-to-play game that shipped with all available game modes but only gave access to a single playable character; other fighters were made available during 'seasons' for an additional cost.