Kickstarted MMO "Crowfall" (opens in new tab) is shutting down this month after launching only a year ago. Developer Monumental broke the news to players on Monday, telling them that they will only have two weeks to get the most out of the game before it closes on November 22. This in itself is not unusual, and is a tragically common fate for online games. What makes this instance stand out, however, is that the team has not declared the end of the game.

"One of the biggest challenges was the sheer amount of development effort required to build new campaigns and keep the game running day-to-day." We have decided to take Crowfall's live services offline for the time being in order to focus our development efforts away from live operations."

This means.

At least according to the developers, Crowfall will be back. But there is no hint as to when that will be or what changes will be made.

"We're going to use this time to map out the future of the game," said the developer. 'But we are investing and rethinking every part of the game, from core technology and tools to art, design, and gameplay. Nothing is off the table."

The impulse to stick with it is understandable; Crowfall has been in development for more than six years since its successful Kickstarter campaign, so it would have been a very sad end to end development after only a year. Nevertheless, the nature of live-service games like MMOs requires the ability to maintain a live game and continue development at the same time, and teams without the resources to do so will always struggle.

Perhaps part of this major rethinking will be figuring out how to do both of these important things, but it is hard to imagine that being possible without major compromises and further investment. It is hard to imagine anyone coming back and spending money when the game has already stopped once. Trust is not earned.

It is also worth noting that Monumental has not been particularly communicative; Monumental acquired Crowfall from the original developer, Artcraft, in December 2021 and initially was fairly regular, especially in March 2022. updates were posted. Until yesterday's announcement, however, the last update to Crowfall's website was in April. The same goes for social media.

Given this, it would be very surprising to see Crowfall resurrected, regardless of Monumental's intentions. And if it is to be resurrected, there will need to be a significant incentive to give players another chance.

In the meantime, all buildings, mounts, and emotes normally sold in the Crowfall store will be free. In addition, any purchases made 90 days prior to Monday's announcement will be automatically refunded. However, if you have uninstalled Crowfall and want to jump back in for one last adventure, you are unfortunately out of luck, as there is no longer a way to download the game.