Sooner or later, all things must end, including limping MMOs that’ve been on life support for longer than they deserve. The official word’s come down that Shadowbane’s servers will be shut off as of May 1.
I have no vested interest in Shadowbane, other than it being a MMO that earned enough publicity to be noticed in its death throes. I remember back in 2003 being briefly, but only briefly, tempted to pick up a copy when it released, but then I found City of Heroes and all was well in the world.
Shadowbane had an interesting history that parallels some of our more modern releases — it was highly anticipated as a primarily-PvP MMORPG, released to middling-to-poor reviews, and limped on from there. It got sold off after a year, switched in 2006 to a free-to-play format (sponsored by ads), and in a fairly shocking move, did a complete game reboot — wiping all characters and cities and progress — in 2008. They even squeezed out two expansions along the way. For an original IP game that had this rocky of a history and a fairly weak population, five years seems more than it probably deserved.
I think that many of us pause at the demise of any well-known MMO, because we know that there’s a dedicated community that’s have a Very Bad Day, and because it reminds us that no matter where our virtual homes are, they are temporary and could conceivably vanish with little or no warning. So I’m not dancing on Shadowbane’s grave or anything here. Hope that community finds a good new home.
I had no idea that game was even still around. I thought it died years ago.
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I remember thinking about giving SB a whirl before WAR hit the streets, as I had played on a friend’s account when it went live and found it a lot of fun. Never did get around to it though, my hearts out to all those who lost their MMO of choice.