Category: Defunct

Red5 Studios Gives 24 Hours Notice: Firefall To Shut Down


Red 5 Studios today unveiled the announcement that should surprise few: Firefall is finally closing down its servers. Firefall has been in limbo for a long time between the staff being laid off, server outages, and a total lack of development, at some point the game completely stopped functioning past a certain point with graphics card firmware which remained unpatched. There were plans at one point to port Firefall to the Playstation 4 which quietly fizzled out, there was more than one instance of Red5 being unable to fulfill payroll, and the Chinese cashmire company that owns Red5 became effectively worthless.

With heavy hearts, we regret to inform you that after much review and analysis, Red 5 Studios have decided to suspend the Firefall efforts on 7th, July 2017. Thank you for being an important part of the Firefall experience and for your loyalty and dedication to the online community.

Your efforts and loyalty will not go without recognition, however. Firefall is currently developing a mobile version of the game and all of Firefall’s founders and players will be rewarded greatly in the new game. We will be sure to provide everyone with more updates as we have them.

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm throughout the years; we will see you at the next battle.

MMO Fallout listed Firefall shutting down as one of our 2017 predictions.

Firefall will first announce that the console version is cancelled before revealing that the PC version is shutting down either simultaneously or a week or two later. Nobody will be surprised, however the last few hours will draw in a lot of people to watch the world burn.

(Source: Red5)

Pixelmage Games Closing, Hero’s Song Shutting Down


Following its Indiegogo campaign failing to draw in half of the intended goal, Pixelmage Games has announced the cancellation of Hero’s Song and the closure of the studio itself. Players who funded the game on Indiegogo and Steam can receive refunds either through Steam or by contacting Pixelmage at the address on the official website.

The announcement cites low sales but thanks backers for their support.

It’s with a heavy heart that I have to report that Pixelmage Games is going to be shutting down and we have ceased development on Hero’s Song. For the last year, our team has worked tirelessly to make the game we’ve dreamed about making, and with your support, and the support of our investors, we were able to get the game into Early Access. Unfortunately sales fell short of what we needed to continue development. We knew going in that most startups don’t make it, and as an indie game studio we hoped we would be the exception to that rule, but as it turned out we weren’t.

Pixelmage Games was founded by ex-Daybreak Game Company (previously Sony Online Entertainment) President John Smedley. Hero’s Song was supposed to be a sandbox MMO where players would create their own worlds with unique, generated histories.

Webzen Will Be Shuttering ELOA, ASTA This Year


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Webzen has announced that two of its titles will be shutting down by the end of this year. First on the plate is ASTA Online, which will be taken offline October 4th. Beginning this week, the cash shop has officially closed and players will be able to utilize 100% boosts to experience, fame, and drops if they wish to continue playing until the service shuts down. All purchases from the past month will be reimbursed.

Many of you followed us all the way from IBT, to OBT, to multiple expansions, and your support made us believe we could succeed. Sadly, we were wrong. The players we have are awesome, and any company would be happy to have such a dedicated community, but sadly the recent player numbers are not sufficient for us to be able to continue the service. So, after discussions with Polygon Games, we have agreed that the game servers will close on the 4th of October.

Second on the chopping block is Elite Lord of Alliance, which will sunset further along. Similar to ASTA, the cash shop will close and all purchases from the last 30 days will be compensated.

Since official launch, we have been working hard to build a strong community and various events. Unfortunately, we have come to a difficult decision to end this long journey we have enjoyed and cherished together. We understand that this will disappoint many of our players.

More details can be found at each game’s respective website.

Funcom Shutting Down Lego Minifigures Online


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You know that there is trouble when a developer actively points out the best time to get out of their contract. We learned earlier this year that Funcom’s license with Lego Minifigures Online ends in October 2016, so there shouldn’t be a surplus of surprise that the title is being sunset at the end of September.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that LEGO Minifigures Online will be closing on September 30th, 2016. We know that many of you are still enjoying your adventures in the game, and this has been a difficult decision for us to make but unfortunately, the time has come to retire LEGO Minifigures Online.

Lego Minifigures originally launched as a free to play game in 2014. When the title failed to meet expectations, Funcom transformed the game into a buy to play model, effectively locking out anyone who had previously played but not purchased anything. The poor performance of the model was attributed to overestimation of buying power, according to Funcom’s quarterly report from May 2015.

(Source: Funcom)

Darkfall Goes Offline


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Darkfall has gone offline, and Aventurine doesn’t know when, or if, it will be returning. Unholy Wars, the official version, went offline with a post on the official forums explaining to players that economic conditions in Greece have made the game unsustainable. While they hope that the disruption is only temporary, for now it should be considered indefinite.

We have been involved with Darkfall for over 13 years now and it is our hope that we will be able to continue well into the future with your support. Unfortunately, and against our best efforts, the conditions in Greece have caught up with us and do not allow us to continue operating the game as we have been so far. We hope that the disruption of Darkfall Unholy Wars service is temporary and that we will be back soon in a more sustainable format. We apologize for the inconvenience to all that are affected.

Rumors of Aventurine being in a bad situation have been rampant ever since the developer decided to license the original Darkfall out to two separate developers at the same time.

(Source: Darkfall)

What Happened: Missing Ink Edition


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What Happened is a series of articles partially inspired by you, the community, and otherwise brought on by a fleeting moment where the flapping wires in my brain connect and memories are able to get through. Given the long development nature of MMOs, it isn’t uncommon to have a game announced and then never hear from it again, the developer drifting silently into the night only to resurface somewhere in another dimension.

I last talked about The Missing Ink in 2014, even then asking what happened to the game and its development crew at Redbedlam. The game (pictured above) shut down in early 2014 with the note that it would be coming back later that year, and we haven’t heard anything since. None of the social media accounts have been maintained since that announcement, and the game is clearly dead.

So what happened to Redbedlam? Are they dead as well? You might think so, but they are alive and kicking. They released a game last October, a shooter called Bedlam that has quite an odd mishmash of visual styles. Bedlam is available on sale today both on Steam and on Indiegala, the latter being much cheaper, and it currently holds a “very positive” rating on Steam.

It’s safe to say that The Missing Ink has probably been shelved for now, if not indefinitely, but it’s good to see that Redbedlam is still actively creating games that people like to play.

Nosgoth Shutting Down Next Month


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Nosgoth will shut down its servers at the end of May, according to a post on the official website. Anyone who made a purchase after March 1st will be automatically refunded as soon as possible, likely within the next two weeks.

It is with a heavy heart and an immense sense of sadness that we must announce the end of Nosgoth’s development. Servers will continue to run until 31st May 2016, during which time you will be able to play the game as normal. After that date, Nosgoth will be taken offline for the last time.

Nosgoth is a team-based shooter based on the Legacy of Kain series, launched on Steam in 2015. Steam Charts shows an average of one thousand concurrent players over the past few months. The announcement doesn’t mention much about the future of the Legacy of Kain series, other than to say that it independent of Nosgoth’s performance.

(Source: Nosgoth)

Greed Monger Officially Dead…Again


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Greed Monger has once again been cancelled, leaving everyone who pledged the over ninety grand out of luck, again. The MMO was Kickstarted to the tune of ninety grand, only to face development issues and eventual cancellation under Jason Appleton and Electric Crow Games. Appleton handed over the title to ex-employee Jason Proctor who has, in turn, announced that the game has been cancelled.

After careful consideration giving GM’s track record and the number of people we still have in the community we have decided it’s best to put Greed Monger to rest for good. There is no way that Greed Monger could support it’s self with as small of a user base as we would have.

We’ll have to see if this is the last time that Greed Monger is momentarily resuscitated. For now, it appears that the game is back where it was always headed, the defunct category.

(Source: Greed Monger)

DUST 514 Will Shut Down In May


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CCP Games has announced that their console shooter DUST 514 will be shutting down later this year. Initially launched on the Playstation 3 in 2013, DUST never really caught on with either the Eve Online community or the console community. The idea was pretty unique, players in DUST would form corporations that would fight over territory control on planets in the Eve universe, contracted by players in the MMO. Unfortunately the game failed to catch on with shooter fans, who had numerous other well-established console shooters, and Eve players who heavily criticized the game only being available on consoles.

We are very proud of what we’ve learned and accomplished with DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 over the past three years and it is an honor to be a part of such a dedicated community. We consider DUST 514 one of the best free-to-play offerings on the platform, but the years have caught up with us. It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that DUST 514 will be shutting down on May 30th, 2016.

The forum post announcing the sunsetting also mentions a new PC shooter set in the Eve universe, to be given more detail at Eve Fanfest in April. The most loyal DUST players can expect some sort of recognition when this game comes around.

(Source: DUST 514)

Soldier Front 2: Highly Reviewed, On Steam, Also Defunct


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Soldier Front 2 is one of many free to play first person shooters on Steam and, if you’re anything like me, you may have stumbled upon it while browsing your recommended queue during the holiday sale. It may have even caught your eye, being a free to play shooter with a “very positive” community rating, and you may have downloaded it only to find that the game doesn’t launch. Instead, you get an error mentioning issues connecting to the server.

You see, Soldier Front 2 shut down months ago, yet the game is still available to download from Steam. The store page for SF2 no longer lists extra DLC packs, however they are still available for purchase for anyone unlucky enough to stumble upon and ignorant enough to buy without attempting to launch the game first. And should anyone get that far down the rabbit hole, the booster-nature of the DLC packs means that they are all ineligible for a refund.

(Source: Steam)