Tag: Sunset

Astellia Online Already Shutting Down In Korea


Astellia Online is shutting down in its native home of Korea. The southern one.

Nexon has announced the sunset of Astellia Online in Korea with servers set to shut down on Thursday January 16, 2020. The website is a little tough to read given Google’s automatic translation tools but it looks like limited refunds will be available to customers going back sometime through this year. Astellia Online launched about a year ago in Korea and was published by Nexon. The western launch was self-published by the game’s developer Barunson.

The news has the western Astellia audience concerned about an impending sunset in our territory, as player estimates show that the western population isn’t doing so well either. People have also raised questions about the impending Russian launch as pre-order packages have gone on sale.

Source: Astellia

Battleborn Rendered Unplayable In January 2021


2K Games announced this week that the Battleborn servers will shut down as of January 2021, leading everyone to ask the same question; “Battleborn’s servers were still online?”

Battleborn famously launched in May 2016 and became known as the game killed in the crib by Overwatch which released just three weeks after. Following a steep decline in users once Overwatch actually launched, Battleborn languished for a year and a half until Gearbox finally pulled the plug and announced that the title would no longer be seeing any content updates. After that it was only a matter of time until the servers were taken down for good.

For what it’s worth, Battleborn was actually a decent game. Not great, but decent. It was less of the Overwatch that it was compared to and more of a first person shooter variant of a Dota-style game. GQ’s Joshua Rivera made an analogy in 2017 that still fits:

“Imagine you opened up a new, pretty good pizza shop in your neighborhood, a place where people like pizza but can’t really get any nearby. It’s a good idea; the demand is there, and you’ve got a pretty good supply. Not the best slice you’ve ever had, but you can reliably make a solid pie that should make your spot a hit. Now imagine that two weeks later, let’s say… Paul Rudd opens a pizza shop a block away. And not only is that pizza shop a place where you can go and hang out with Paul Rudd and all his famous friends, but it turns out that Paul Rudd is like, a pizza savant? Just freaking impossibly good at slingin’ pies, that Paul Rudd.”

As of right now, Battleborn has been removed from digital store shelves (although you can probably still find piles of unopened copies at Goodwill). Digital currency is being removed from sale in February 2020 and the game will no longer be playable once the servers go down in January 2021.

Source: Twitter

Everyone Missed It: Daybreak Permanently Closes Everquest Player Studio


Since Daybreak has fallen out of the public spotlight, nobody notices when they shut things down anymore.

Flashback to March 1 and you will find producer Nick Silva stating that the player studio is absolutely not dead, and will in fact return better than ever.

“In the meantime, we will be evaluating options for overhauling the Player Studio site with the intention of allowing broader categories of submissions and a more streamlined submission process.”

Unfortunately the player studio is yet another reminder that anything coming out of Daybreak should be taken with a grain of salt. In an announcement on June 22 that absolutely nobody noticed because not a single gaming website (including this one) reported on it, Daybreak quietly took the Everquest/Everquest 2 Player Studio out back and gave it the Old Yeller treatment. The announcement is as follows (their strikethroughs, not mine).

“Over the years, EverQuest II players have remained some of the most dedicated in any virtual world. Since Player Studio first launched, we have constantly found ourselves impressed and humbled by the boundless creative talents of our players. Over the years, members of our community have created countless new items that help bring even more color to the world of Norrath. After nearly 6 years, the Player Studio program has concluded for both EverQuest and EverQuest II. Player Studio items that have been previously approved will be released and remain in-game, but players will not have the ability to submit new items. We’d like to thank each of you for sharing your creations with us.”

This sunsetting makes Planetside 2 the only game remaining with Studio support, and the term “support” might be generous. The Planetside 2 sector of the Player Studio is performing fantastically, with the creator forums seeing an entire thirteen posts over the entirety of 2019. One of the posts is lamenting the fact that the user’s creation has been in limbo for over a year with nobody bothering to look at a simple decal submission. There has been roughly one developer post on the entire studio forums in the last two years, and that was to announce the initial suspension of new creators.

Source: Daybreak

Bless Online Goes Offline September 9


Among the splendor of the E3 game reveals, Neowiz has announced that Bless Online will be shutting down in the west as of September 9. The title launched into early access on Steam one year ago in June 2018 to a respectable peak of 28,000 players but players very quickly jumped ship due to a number of issues ranging from prevalent botting to balance problems and performance on even the best of gaming PCs. By the following month, the peak count had dropped by 80% and it never quite recovered.

To send the game off, Neowiz is launching a bonus experience event starting June 10th and running until sunset time for those of you who want to grind out some Steam achievements before the servers go offline forever.

Starting after server maintenance on June 10th, 2019 and until September 8th, 2019 23:59 Dungeons wants to be removed, and the Dungeon drop rates will be increased. Players want to see a 100% increase in Gathering / Mining EXP, Guild EXP, Dungeon Points, and Combat Points. Gathering, Mining, and Crafting speeds will be increased by 50%. 

Despite Bless failing in virtually every territory it has launched in, Neowiz plans on releasing a version on the Xbox One under the name Bless Unleashed.

Source: Steam

Atlas Reactor No Longer Sustainable, Will Shut Down


Trion World’s title Atlas Reactor will sunset on June 28, 2019. The title was launched in 2016 under Trion Worlds and transferred along with Trion’s other assets to Gamigo when the company suddenly shut down last year.

Mervin Lee Kwai, Vice President of Development at gamigo and a former Executive Producer: “Atlas Reactor was a truly innovative game built by a passionate group of highly skilled developers. I was lucky enough to watch our team breathe life into the world of Atlas on a daily basis. They broke the mold of same-y games, and a dedicated community rallied around the title. Despite the support of this great group of fans, Atlas Reactor never grew big enough to fund its continued development. It’s a shame to see this chapter come to a close, but perhaps we’ll have a chance to revisit the innovative spirit of Atlas in the future.”

As part of the shut down, players who logged in between January 1 and April 16 will receive a small parting gift. The cash shop has been shut down and experience, flux, and ISO rates have been boosted dramatically for the duration of the game’s life.

Source: Atlas Reactor

Rift’s Progression Server Is Dead, Sunsetting At End of Month


Rift’s progression server experiment is coming to a premature end. As posted on the official forums, Rift’s progression server will come down on March 31 with character transfers occurring the following week.

As part of the sunset, all accounts with a level 50 character on Prime will be receive a level 65 character boost pack as well as one million loyalty points. Unfortunately if you’re at capacity for characters on the live servers, you’re going to have to decide who is getting deleted.

The decision may not surprise Rift players, as one can find multiple threads on the main forum discussing low population on the Rift Prime server.

Source: Rift

Razer Game Store Shuts Down After 10 Months


Razer today announced that the official Game Store will be closing down at the end of February, just 10 months after it launched.

Users are requested to retrieve their Steam/Uplay keys by February 28. The keys will not expire when the store closes, but you will be unable to view them on the store website. Keys are emailed upon purchase, so they will still be viewable if you kept those emails.

All pre-ordered games will be delivered upon release, and all vouchers will expire on the 28.

The announcement has been listed below, more information is available on the official website.

Dear Gamers,

We regret to announce that Razer Game Store (gamestore.razer.com) will cease operations on February 28, 2019 at 0100hrs Pacific Time as part of the company’s realignment plans.

It has been a privilege for us to recommend and deliver great digital game deals to you. We have been extremely fortunate to have you as part of our awesome community. Thank you for the support and making all this possible.

We will be investing in other ways to deliver great content and introduce game promotions through Razer Gold, our virtual credits system (https://gold.razer.com/). Do visit us there and stay tuned for more news.

Yours truly,
The Razer Game Store team

Wildstar To Shut Down, Carbine Studios Will Close


Carbine Studios will close its doors and Wildstar Online will shut down, according to an announcement released today by NCSoft. Kotaku broke the story, noting that the layoffs at Carbine will include 50 people and comes after at least two projects failed to gain traction with the studio’s parent company and publisher.

NCSoft stated to Kotaku,

“WildStar players who have spent money within the game will be refunded purchases from July 1, 2018 until the payment system is shut off. We are also in the process of identifying the teams that will be doing the work to bring WildStar to a close. These decisions are very difficult to make and we are in the midst of shifting as many of our teammates as possible into other roles within the organization.”

NCSoft’s reluctance to shut down Wildstar came off as confusing, despite effectively ending major content support and refusing to even acknowledge the title by name in its quarterly earnings reports. There have not been any concrete details released as of yet on when Wildstar will sunset its servers.

As of this article, the official Wildstar website has not posted an announcement related to this news.

Just Defunct: Daybreak To Shut Down Early Access Just Survive


Daybreak Game Company has announced that Just Survive, formerly known as H1Z1, is to sunset on October 24 after three years of early access. In the announcement, Daybreak noted “we are no longer in a position to fulfill its greatness and the current population of the game makes it untenable to maintain.”

Just Survive was part of our first Early Access project, and we learned a great deal during its development. As with any open world game, the greatest stories came from our passionate players. From the incredibly skilled base builders to the free-ranging gangs, and all of the players named variations of “ImFriendly” and “PleaseDontShootMe”, we hope everyone had amazing adventures across Pleasant Valley and Badwater Canyon.

Originally launched into early access in January 2015, Just Survive released as H1Z1 before being split off into two products and renamed H1Z1: Just Survive and ultimately dropping the H1Z1 moniker altogether. All in-game purchases for Just Survive have been disabled.

In May, Daybreak thanked players for their continued support while laying out plans for the future of the title.

(Source: Daybreak)

Trion Worlds Acquires Gazillion Assets


In an astounding twist of events, Venture Beat is reporting this week that Trion Worlds has acquired the assets from defunct studio Gazillion Entertainment. As part of its acquisition, Trion will get its hands on all of Gazillion’s licenses, trademarks, patents, and domains. In addition to utilizing the new licenses for its own purposes, Trion Worlds is also apparently using Gazillion’s assets to create a platform for third party developers to distribute their titles as well as an engine that reports to speed up the development cycle of isometric games, presumably one that was used on Marvel Heroes and Marvel Heroes Omega.

Our technology is platform agnostic,” CEO Scott Hartsman said. “We put an outside game on our platform and it just works. We spun up Trove in the Japanese market recently, and it just took a week.”

Gazillion Entertainment shut down last year after losing its license to the Marvel property. Following its shuttering, Marvel Heroes was the subject of a suspicious crowdfunding campaign created by an individual with questionable ties to a diploma mill, which has since gone dark. Gazillion Entertainment filed for bankruptcy with the case ultimately being dismissed in May due to failure to comply with court orders to file information.

Stay tuned as more details emerge.

(Source: Venture Beat)