EverQuest Next Cancelled Because it "Wasn't Fun": Landmark Goes B2P
In what comes as either no surprise at all or as the biggest surprise of 2016 so far (depending on your thoughts for the last year,) Daybreak Game Company ended speculation today when their President, Russell Shanks, officially announced that EverQuest Next, the highly touted upcoming EverQuest based MMORPG, has had development cancelled.
In the official announcement, Shanks states that "In the case of EverQuest Next, we accomplished incredible feats that astonished industry insiders. Unfortunately, as we put together the pieces, we found that it wasn’t fun."
Obviously there has to be more to the situation than that as "not being fun" is something the team would likely have determined quite some time ago.
What the announcement does not say is what this means for the long term on the Landmark front, if any of the existing EverQuest Next assets will be moved over into another project, or if we'll even see a "next installment" of the long running popular franchise.
Landmark was mentioned by Holly Longdale, Executive Producer on EQ and EQII and now Executive Producer on Landmark, on the forums where she not only announced that Landmark will launch this spring but will also be sold for $9.99 rather than go in a free-to-play direction.
"The future of the EverQuest franchise as a whole is important to us here at Daybreak. EverQuest in all its forms is near and dear to our hearts. EverQuest and EverQuest II are going strong. Rest assured that our passion to grow the world of EverQuest remains undiminished," concluded Shanks.
Are you surprised by the news or did you believe as I did that the end of "Next" was foretold quite some time ago? Let us know in the comments below!
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About the Author
Mike “Magicman” Byrne has been a part of the MMOBomb family for years and serves as the site’s current Editor-in-Chief. His love for MMOs and gaming in general has led him to covering games for numerous gaming websites including Gamebreaker TV and XIV Nation where he proudly displays his fanboy flag for FFXIV:ARR.
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This is truly unfortunate, but I saw this coming since SoE was sold off.