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Just two weeks after launching on Steam, “multiplayer extraction survival horror” shooter Level Zero: Extraction has reached the end of the road. In a message posted to Steam, community manager Antishyr said the game has “underperformed compared to our expectations,” and thus “it’s no longer feasible for our relatively small teams to sustain the game from a financial standpoint.”
“As the project’s community manager, on behalf of [developer] DogHowl and [publisher] tinyBuild, I’m informing you that Level Zero: Extraction has reached the state that will, most probably, be its final form for the time being,” Antishyr wrote. “The final patch for the game was released on January 30th, 2025.
“Level Zero: Extraction is an ambitious debut title from Doghowl. Our desire was to create a game unlike any other by combining the extraction shooter and asymmetrical horror genres. Although we ended up seeing that those are not easy to blend, we’re grateful we had the chance to try and gain so much invaluable experience.”
Level Zero: Extraction actually began life in 2022 as Level Zero, an asymmetric survival game in which a team of scientists struggle to repair their facility and get the hell out, all while trying not to be brutally butchered by a xenomorph-ish alien monster. But after a couple years of silence, it was “re-announced” as Level Zero: Extraction, a more conventional-looking extraction shooter that cast players as gun-toting mercs rather than pencil-neck geeks.
I wondered at the time about the wisdom of trying to muscle into the crowded extraction shooter genre, but art director Alex Golenishchev said it was “an organic evolution of the concept,” and that the combination of genres “empower each other, and … offers a unique experience” that other extraction and horror games do not.
Sadly, it did not work out. Level Zero: Extraction had a peak concurrent player count of just over 2,600 following its early access debut in August 2024, but that quickly fell off to sub-100 numbers by mid-October. The 1.0 release in January didn’t turn things around, achieving a peak concurrent player count of just 98 immediately after launch. At this moment, there are 20 people playing.
Level Zero: Extraction servers will remain online, so the game will continue to be playable, and wipes will continue to happen on the first Thursday of every month but there will be no further weekend events, and of course no new maps, weapons, cosmetics, game modes, or any other features. As for Doghowl, it’s now working on a new multiplayer game, this one a co-op experience: “We really hope that the invaluable experience gained with Level Zero: Extraction will help our emerging studio in future efforts,” the studio said.
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Kurt Indovina
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