Do you folks remember a few years ago when Guardians of Ember launched? It was an isometric hack-and-slash MMO built by Runewaker (you know it from Runes of Magic), whose most notable feat at the time was accidentally raising way too much crowdfund money for a German localization and putting it towards more content for everyone. It was rather well-liked, is what we’re saying.
But just a few months later, the party was over, as its publisher, InselGames, was booted off Steam when Valve rather convincingly determined said publisher was engaging in review manipulation for Guardians of Ember and its other titles. InselGames attempted to keep the game alive off Steam, but by the end of 2018, Gameforge had picked it up from Runewaker instead (Gameforge picks everything up) and soft-relaunched it in NA and Europe last year.
Unfortunately, it looks like something’s gone awry and the game is sunsetting again. According to tweets and emails sent to players this week, Gameforge is dropping the game over some sort of contract issue with Runewaker, which means there will be no version left online.
“Unfortunately we have some very sad news for you today. The contract between Runewaker, the game’s developers, and Gameforge will not be continued. As a result, Gameforge’s Guardians of Ember servers will be switched off on 14th February 2020, and the game will subsequently be unavailable. We are therefore forced to cancel your user agreement effective 14th February 2020. As there are no other official servers for Guardians of Ember being run by other providers, there will be no character transfers. Our payment service will be deactivated today, making it no longer possible to buy premium currency. Any existing currency you have can still be used to purchase items in the shop until the final shutdown.”
Our sympathies go out to the players and devs affected.
