According to this article over at Massively, Perpetual Entertainment, who recently closed down their nearly-released Gods & Heroes MMO, is about to shut down altogether. It was clear from all we’ve been hearing over the past year that they were in trouble, but who knew just how bad it was?
The dev blogs they’ve been posting have shown Star Trek Online at a somewhat early phase of development — we’ve mostly seen some level design and know little about the actual gameplay — so I doubt it would be unrealistic to think that Perpetual’s STO game hasn’t much more going for it than a design document, a demoralized development team, and the Star Trek license itself.
What’s next? Perhaps a merge with another company? SOE took in Sigil, and has had dealings with Perpetual in the past, but unless they let go some of their lesser-loved children, I can’t imagine they have the resources to develop an entirely new game when they have five MMOs in house, a publishing deal with another, and three more on the way (DC Universe Online, The Agency, and Free Realms).
Mission-based, instanced, team-oriented gameplay… I dunno… seems to me Cryptic are experts there and maybe they’re looking for something to do, now that City of Heroes/Villains is in NCSoft’s spandex-gloved hands…
2 thoughts on “Does the end of Perpetual mean an end to Star Trek Online?”
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The second they cancelled Gods & Heroes I figured this would happen.
From what little I’ve read about Perpetual’s STO, I wouldn’t mind seeing the game scrapped altogether and started from scratch at a more competent studio. I tend to feel that MMOs connected to existing IPs tend to stay conservative in terms of design and gameplay anyways, so my hopes were not high to begin with. I liked the idea that Perpetual was creating a Trek universe outside the continuity of the existing shows and movies, but every move they made gameplay-wise (heavy instancing, no ship interiors) left me saying, “Meh.”
SOE might be an option. If the Bioware/EA KOTOR MMO comes to fruition and SWG fans begin migrating over to KOTOR en masse, I wonder if SOE will be shopping around for another powerful sci-fi license. As you point out though, they do have a lot on their plates at the moment so they could very well pass.