Shadowbane Farewell: Servers Will Be Shut Down
Ubisoft has announced that the game servers for long-running MMO, Shadowbane, will be shut down permanently from 1 May 2009.
The announcement was made on the game's forums and official website, although no particular reason for the closure has been given.
Shadowbane launched on 25 March 2003 and enjoyed a position in the top ten best selling PC games. It was one of the first games that allowed PvP in an MMO environment. It also features a dynamic world, meaning that actions by players permanently affect the landscape, for example if a building is destroyed by players, it stays that way and all other players will see it as such.
Despite all this Shadowbane never became hugely popular due to a series of technical issues when the game launched. The original developer, Wolfpack Studios, was sold to Ubisoft the following year and most of the development team was replaced. In 2006 the game became free to play, and in-game ads were introduced to cover running costs. In 2008 all servers were shut down for the 'Shadowbane Reboot', essentially a re-launch without the previous technical issues. Two servers were brought back online from the original five, and a third one was opened shortly afterwards to cope with over-population. However, according to the annoucement today, the game has simply run its course after an impressive six years.
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