No Tea left for Tea-Bagging: Offensive Combat Shuts Down

When Dusty Welch said in 2011 that his goal was to “dethrone the established leaders” with his new studio U4iA, it was easy to believe the former Activision employee and CoD developers offensive mentality toward reemerging in the FPS industry. However, it seems that U4iA could not stand the test of time, and all of the fun and wacky promises of Offensive Combat have now been revoked.

Offensive Combat, which U4iA released its open beta 2.0 on August 23^rd, 2013, was apparently too offensive to continue production, and it doesn't sound like there is hope for a Resurrection of this free to play browser based shooter any time soon.

The studio, shocked their fan base this week by announcing a final day of operation on January 15^th, 2014, leaving a little over three years worth of game development to rest. Although the message to fans and subscribers is conveyed with guilt and condolences, some wonder how the decision to halt operations could have happened almost over night, or as ex-Activision employee Jeremy Dunham put it, in the “blink of an eye.”

While we can accept that sometimes these things just happen, the lack of information on U4iAs retirement does stir up some curiosity as to how such a prolonged project with consistent updates can be swept under the rug with barely a moments notice, as the story could possibly be a red flag for game developers and fans in the near future.

One can only be left to wish the just over two dozen employees who are now seeking employment elsewhere the best of luck finding it.