Lazarus was supposed to be a fast-paced MMO that would give players a huge game world to explore. It was also supposed to offer thousands of enemies and players, all of which would fight over territory and cool technology. Developer Spilt Milk Studios revealed that the plan was rather grandiose, and they came close to achieving it.
In a post, Andrew Smith of Spilt Milk admitted that there are challenges that cannot be overcome. The team, he added, “spent months and years with a tiny team, exploring the challenges and opportunities of a new design space - persistence, scale, the kinds of things that the cloud can offer - and in the process providing feedback to help our technology partner Improbable improve their tech as well as making Lazarus brilliant fun. and we’re immensely proud of what we achieved.”
The game even entered Open Alpha, but after almost three years, it was clear what needed to be done. The studio made the decision not to release the game and officially shut down Lazarus. Three years is a long time for an MMO to be in Open Alpha. Smith went on to say that they hope the community understands their decision and joins them in saying goodbye.
Despite the game being amazing, there were a number of things that needed to be considered before the actual launch. According to the studio, expenses include “server costs and software licenses, the cost of maintaining, running and updating the game as it grows with new features and content, and the licensing of all of the services we use to run things like player accounts and whatnot.”
If the game was to launch, the cost of maintaining, as well as expanding, the game as it was marketed to more players was truly going to have an impact on Spilt Milk’s financial status. Despite the strong support of the community, it was a risk that the studio was not willing to take.
Even if Lazarus is shut down, Spilt Milk remains to be fine and is going to move forward. While it is indeed sad that the game is getting shut down, the studio hopes to move forward stronger because of the experience.
Lazarus is going to be live until September 12, after which the servers are going to be taken down.
