Way back in 2015, Dean Hall announced Ion, a ridiculously ambitious sci-fi space sandbox MMO built using Improbable’s SpatialOS. And now it’s dead.
Eurogamer went digging and got statements from Improbable and Hall that imply it’s game over for the game; Improbably says it’s not working on Ion but wouldn’t really comment further, and Hall said that he and his New Zealand studio aren’t working on it either — in fact, it hasn’t been active since fall of last year and couldn’t be done without Improbable. There’s clearly plenty left being unsaid.
And just so we understand exactly what we’re losing here: Hall was adamant at E3 2015 that the game was an MMO. “We had a lot of marketing people saying, don’t call it an MMO. Everyone will think it’s orcs and wizards running around,” he said at the time. “It’s stale [the MMO genre]. My point is, that’s exactly why we have to own it as an MMO. It is. It’s inspired by EVE Online and Space Station 13. I’m hoping that we can show there are so many areas you can innovate in terms of MMOs.”
Dammit.
https://youtu.be/4asYhzDgT6M
