Blackout (2021)

Initial Release
Blackout was released on March 2nd of 2021. Although the early versions of Blackout were not well-known or documented, it was seen as a rip-off of the popular game Criminality due to the combat system and core gameplay being very similar. Blackout even states that their game was inspired by Criminality.

The game initially was not received well, mainly from Criminality players disliking what they thought was a Criminality copy.

First Game Ban
Blackout’s first game ban was around September 5th of 2021 (9/5). It was later unbanned and reestablished on September 8th (9/8), and, due to its status as a Criminality rip-off, the ban was surrounded with controversy and theories.

Silver later confirmed at a later date that the ban was caused by certain assets in-game.

Criminality Group Reports
A widely known (And mostly perceived) theory of the first game ban was that Criminality players had mass-reported the game for stolen assets. Although this has never been confirmed (Nor denied), it is thought that, due to how the opinion of blackout started to change and became more positive, the Criminality group had attacked it, in hopes of getting the game shut down.

Silver Stolen Assets
A less common (And unlikely) theory was that Silver had stolen assets, which resulted in the game getting banned.

Blackout Surge
After the first game ban, Blackout received a huge player boost, due to it having less of the problems that Criminality players face (although some aspects of Blackout were inherently worse than Criminality), and also because it was a free game. After around 3-4 days from the unban, Blackout had an average player count of 200 to 400, while Criminality dropped in player count from 200 to around 100.

Transfer of Criminality players, fights
Due to the opinions of Blackout turning more positively by the day, there were tensions and clashes between the Criminality community and the Blackout community.

Second Game Ban
On September 16 (9/16), the game was banned again. Due to the game growing in popularity, this ban was met with even more confusion and chaos in the Blackout community.

Unlike the previous ban, which Silver had provided information with, this ban would be met with silence. This would add more confusion and speculations into what happened, and the reason for the ban.

Criminality Group Mass Report
Although not entirely confirmed, the most believed theory of the game’s ban was that the Criminality community, disliking the game's player base drop, had mass-reported the game, having it shutdown in hopes to get their player base back. Because of this, the clash between the Criminality community and Blackout community raged on for a short time, before the Blackout community slowly faded out.

Radio Silence
For 5 months, no official message about the status of Blackout was given, leading the hype and growth of the Blackout community to slowly drain.

Silver later confirmed that he was frustrated about the game’s situation, stating that: “''I was on a break from Blackout as I was frustrated with this whole situation. But I am back to working on it once again, for the past few weeks I've been working on changing and revamping Blackout as I'm not satisfied with its current state''.“

Announcements, Sneak-Peeks
On February 21st, 2022 (2/21/22), Silver announced the game’s status and the cause of silence, as well as the current development of the game.

On February 27th, 2022 (2/27), Silver announced a sneak-peeks channel, in which the hype around the “New” Blackout started to increase more and more. The first of these sneak peeks would be the Lockpicking Demonstration, which had invited a huge crowd back to Blackout. ”It isn’t a f***ing system where you put squares on a white line, it’s a whole a** lockpicking system.” - Silver

As time went on, more and more Sneak-Peeks were released to the Blackout community, via YouTube Videos, Twitter tweets, or Discord videos.

As of June 2nd of 2022, Blackout has not reopened.