Sirocco, a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game that spent an extraordinary 15 years in development, has abruptly ceased operations. Launched into early access on Steam in May 2025 with a `mostly positive` rating, the game never moved beyond this phase. Its developer, Lunchbox Entertainment, confirmed the shutdown, stating that despite their dedicated efforts, continuing was no longer feasible.
Many players might be unfamiliar with Sirocco, a unique 5v5 naval brawler where players customize boats to engage in sea battles. Its origins trace back over a decade to a Warcraft 3 mod, evolving into a full game aiming to be a Battleships-inspired MOBA. Despite its long gestation, the game struggled to find a substantial audience, peaking at just 882 players approximately four months prior to its closure, according to SteamDB. Since its May 2025 early access launch, player counts rarely exceeded 30 at any given time, leading Lunchbox Entertainment to make the difficult decision to shut down its servers.
In an official Steam update, the development team announced:
We are shutting down our servers indefinitely on August 20, 2025, at 3 PM ET. After that time, the game will be unplayable. We apologize for any inconvenience and express our gratitude for your support. For questions, please reach out via Discord, and we will assist as best we can.
Further details emerged on August 18 via the official Sirocco Discord server, where developer Jack of Boxes shared an emotional message, expressing the team`s pride in the game and their aspirations for its future return.
“Hi everyone, getting emotional just writing this,” Jack of Boxes penned. “Today is the day we pull the plug on our servers. Despite our best efforts, we can’t keep Sirocco going. So, we’ll be shutting things down on Wednesday, the 20th. In other words, Sirocco will go offline in two days.” He confirmed that all Patreon supporters subscribed within the last 90 days have been refunded. “As much as it sucks to shut off the servers, we’re really proud of Sirocco and we are going to do everything we can to keep making games so one day we can bring back Sirocco in the future when we have more resources.” He concluded with heartfelt thanks: “Thank you all for being a truly amazing community. You all have gone above and beyond to make our game and community the best it could be and, for that, I can’t thank you enough.”