Earlier this month, we reported on layoffs of unknown size at Rend developer Frostkeep Studios. Now, the studio has admitted that it’ll be closing down the game entirely.
“We’re sad to announce that on 1/31/2020 we will sunset Rend,” the devs write. “This was a difficult decision for our team and was not something we approached lightly or without serious thought and consideration. As a small indie studio, we set out with determination and a bold vision to create a competitive survival game that would challenge the traditional mold and introduce new experiences and ways for players and friends to participate within the game regardless of play style. But ultimately, the game’s population levels have decreased and reached a level where the original experience we hoped for and envisioned for Rend is no longer a possibility. We will formally shut down all public servers on Friday 1/31. While today’s news is a disappointment, we’re sincerely grateful to our players, partners and the community for your commitment and support. Thank you for joining us on the battlefield.”
The studio layoffs are not mentioned.
Frostkeep, MMO players will recall, was a studio helmed by former WoW, LOL, and WildStar devs, all originally working on Rend, which was somewhere between an MMORPG and a survival sandbox. The game even took awards when it was revealed in 2017, and it was gorgeous. But it didn’t quite catch on, and in March of 2019, the devs admitted it was effectively launching the game – straight into maintenance mode with consolidated servers. While Frostkeep’s Jeremy Wood told us some devs would still be working on the game, it was clear that most had been moved to a new project, for which the studio was still hiring as late as November of last year. However, as we noted that same month, Rend itself had long since dropped down to around a dozen concurrent players as Steam users warned each other the game was dead.
There’s one ray of light in all this: While the studio says it won’t keep its servers up or leave the game buyable on Steam, it does say, “Frostkeep will not support but will neither interfere with any private servers.”
