Microsoft and Gas Powered Games call time on their free-to-play strategy game.
Despite being a free-to-play game, Age of Empires Online was actually rather pretty.
Despite only launching in March of last year, Gas Powered Games has announced that new content development for Age of Empires Online has halted. No more new features or civilisations will be added to the free-to-play strategy service, but it will stay live for the foreseeable future as the development team transitions from the production to support phase.
“This is a bittersweet announcement for me to make. While I wish that we had been able to add everything that we had wanted (especially a Roman civilization), I am very proud of the work that has been done to get to this point,” reads an open statement to the Age of Empires Online community penned by Gas Powered Games’ Trajan.
“Over the past year specifically we have made a significant amount of changes to the service, including highly complex changes like altering the business model entirely, while still adding a steady stream of high-quality content to the game itself. We have come a long way since August 2011. But now we have finished building the world of AOEO. We hope that you will join us in playing there for a long time to come”
Gas Powered Games cited production costs as the reason behind their decision to halt development on the game. A small amount of new content is still in the process of being delivered and that will arrive on the service in the next few weeks, but after that the game will stay as is.
Microsoft recently shutdown another of its high profile free-to-play endeavours Microsoft Flight, and it’s hard to see this announcement as anything but the publisher come console manufacturer retreating from the PC gaming space once again after another failed attempt to capture hearts and minds. Good job there’s a new console launch just around the corner…
Tags: Age of Empires Online
Company of Heroes 2, Batman: Arkham Origins, Grand Theft Auto V, Watch_Dogs, Beyond: Two Souls and Night of the Rabbit previews.
Download Now!
