*sigh*
Last week, publisher Trion Worlds announced that End of Nations has had its Open Beta phase delayed “until further notice.” An MMORTS from developer Petroglyph Games that we at Lore Hound have been following for a few years, we hoped the news wasn’t a death sentence. Today’s follow-up ushers in the presence of a sickle-wielding darkness.
If the refunds for early adopters wasn’t daunting enough, Petroglyph Games has reportedly laid off some 30 staffers responsible for End of Nations at the Las Vegas studio. The rumor was alluded to and then confirmed by a sad tweet from designer Adam Stevens:
“Layoffs at Petroglyph. Looking like I’ll be Leaving Las Vegas“ read his follow-up tweet.
End of Nations is certainly the most marketed game in development by Petroglyph Games, but it’s not the only title in production. The firm is developing its own twist for the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre that has seen far less attention to this point. Battle for Graxia hasn’t been splashed across trade shows, but MOBAs seem to be where MMOGs were about 6 years ago.
Everyone’s doing it.
End of Nations may make a return to the scene in 2013. Best of luck to those impacted by the layoffs.
Sad news, but not unexpected. There may be ways to crack the RTS+MMO nut, but EoN didn’t seem to be the one to do it. It felt more like a lobby system for a rather generic team-vs-team game than anything else. In my opinion, they should have aimed at doing massive maps, doing to RTS what Planetside 2 does to FPS. At it stands, EoN was never going to be able to overcome the 800 lb gorilla that is Starcraft 2.
December 6th, 2012 at 2:24 pmQuote