Sony has announced that the online servers for the LittleBigPlanet games on PS3 and PlayStation Vita have been shut down permanently. The closure affects LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet 3 on PS3 as well as LittleBigPlanet PS Vita.
The decision to end operations on the online servers was to protect the community and keep it safe as they were attacked earlier this year. Hackers were reportedly unhappy with how Sony had been treating the LittleBigPlanet franchise. Unfortunately, they thought the proper solution was to launch DDOS attacks on the servers and as a result, Sony temporarily disabled the servers.
The PS4 version of LittleBigPlanet 3 was affected by the attack too, and a Game Update 1.27 has been launched that brought back the game’s servers and its more than 10 million community-curated levels.
Sony also clarified that any community content that was published via the PS3 versions of the game will still be available on LittleBigPlanet 3 on PS4. Additionally, the Story Modes and Level Pack DLC from the PS3 versions are still playable in single-player or local co-op.
These server closures are unfortunate, especially with Sony’s PlayStation 3 games as many of their multiplayer services have shut down in recent years such as Uncharted, Killzone, and Wipeout. But it feels even worse when that deadline is exacerbated because of outside forces like hackers. The Titanfall servers have recently been going through a similar situation too.
The latest game involving the franchise’s protagonist is Sackboy: A Big Adventure, which is available on PS4 and PS5.