Voxel Building MMO Everquest: Landmark is Shutting Down Next Month

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Voxel Building MMO Everquest: Landmark is Shutting Down Next Month

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1372/1372368.jpgAfter a lengthy beta and seven months at retail, Everquest: Landmark is shutting down in February.

In March of last year, Daybreak Games announced that it was ending development on Everquest Next [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/166803-EverQuest-Next-Cancelled-by-Daybreak-Games]. The company issued a statement at the time saying that Landmark would be launching in the spring, and the the EQ Next cancellation wouldn't affect it. Now, just seven months after Landmark launched, Daybreak has announced it will shut down the voxel-based MMO next month.

The announcement was posted on the game's official blog [https://www.landmarkthegame.com/news/important-news-about-landmark-2017], and lays out the plans for the next few weeks before the games goes dark. It reads in part,

"To the Landmark community,

With heavy hearts, we are writing today to inform you that after much review, we have decided to close Landmark game servers on February 21, 2017."

There will be a number of changes to how the game works for the last few weeks. You will no longer be able to list or purchase Player Studio items in the Landmark Marketplace. The game has also been removed from digital stores, and is no longer available for purchase. Any items left in the Marketplace with a Daybreak Cash price will have that price reduced to one Daybreak Cash.

The servers, social media channels, and forums for Landmark will close down permanently at 4:00 PM PT on Tuesday, February 21, 2017. If you have any questions about the shutdown, you can find the FAQ, and instruction son how to file a ticket for any unanswered questions, over on the Daybreak Blog [https://www.landmarkthegame.com/news/important-news-about-landmark-2017].

It's hard to call this news surprising. Many people speculated after the cancellation of EQ Next that Landmark might not even launch. We'll have to wait and see what's next for Daybreak Games, but we do know that it will be serving as the global publisher for both Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, both of which were handed off to new indie developer Standing Stone games by Turbine last month [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169098-Turbine-Hands-Off-LotRO-DDO-to-New-Indie-Studio-Standing-Stone-Games].

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[Jacked Assassin]

It's not Everquest: Landmark; just Landmark. They took Everquest out of it once they canceled Everquest: Next. Furthermore Landmark got a lot of bad reviews on Steam from what I remember.

 

[Remus]

KNEW IT. Without EQ Next to support the toolset, which was to be used in theory to import player-made content into the actual game, all Landmark could do was flail on its side like a fish miles from water. I'm sure the toolset was nice, with the intention of being Minecraft but more depth, but Minecraft itself was something of a fluke. Recreating that flash in the pan I'm sure is every developer's dream but it has to be done better. Landmark simply wasn't good enough to stand on its own. This was intended to be the backbone of a whole MMO world. Without the lore for inspiration, there was no real draw. Sad to see it go, but not unexpected, not by a longshot.

 

[Ishigami]

I thought they were on the right track with EQ Next.
They had good aesthetics, apparently a solid action based combat with telegraphs as we seen them in lost of MMO as of late (FFXIV) and nice social stuff e.g. the emotes.
I never got Landmarks. I thought of it as some testing ground for the tec in EQ Next. Why they solo with it I have no idea not to mention it was dead on arrival after Sony sold everything as it was obvious all of it would get shoot down.
So... no surprise there.

 

[Zulnam]

I think that's a world record as far as MMO-cancelations go.

 

[Xyebane]

I wasn't even aware it had release, I thought it was just vaporware.

 

[The Enquirer]

I think it's only a matter of time before the studio itself folds. I've still got friends who play DCUO and they're apparently really pushing cash-grab's with that to the point where you can't even complete gear sets during their temporary release period without paying on top of your membership.

Games that are trying that bad to make money are traditionally only a number of months away, a year max, from failure.

 

[Nurb]

I remember the beta, they wanted to charge people to test their game, and their microtransaction system was far beyond reasonable so I'm not surprised at all.

 

[Kahani]

Never was abbreviating "MMORPG" to "MMO" more appropriate. This really was a Massively Multiplayer Online, with no sign of an actual game, role-playing or otherwise. Seven months might be a rather short life, but it's more than anyone sane expected from it.