Remember way back in 2015, when Chinese studio Changyou bought up the rights to classic territorial warfare MMORPG Shadowbane and relaunched it overseas as World of Shadowbane? It was welcome news, though western players were still stuck playing on emulators instead. But six months ago, Changyou began testing an international version of the game, and now it’s apparently gearing up for a launch on Steam. Here’s the statement from the official site, run through Google translate:
“Thank you for your support for the shadowbane international nostalgic test service over the past six months. After many iterations, the current game server and client functions have been optimized. The new version of the game will be launched on the Steam platform soon. It is expected to be released at the end of January 2021. The current international nostalgic test service will be closed at 12:00 on December 1, 2020. The opening time of the new test service is to be determined, and the invitation test entrance will be reopened at that time.”
Don’t remember Shadowbane? It originally launched in 2003 but lasted only six years in the wild. MOP’s own Game Archaeologist has chronicled its history if you need a recap!
1. Shut the f up.
2. Can we play or no in America?
3. War Server vets can like form one huge ass guild and give them a zerg. Let’s do ettt.
Utopian Keep will be reborn!
Zev and Xev Utopia
Oh I remember Shadowbane. Click to move, open world pvp, corpse looting, pickpocketting players and all. The pvp gankbox crowd will be beside themselves, but I’ll take a hard pass. The graphics and interface are … yeesh level horrible, and I just don’t have the stomach for the whole infiltration and sabotage from within style gameplay. I’m not a liar and don’t want to play with liars. If I did I’d play EVE.
Actually, the UI for that time was a lot better than most, despite not allowing mods/addons. You could drag skills all over the screen, not limited to hotbars, rescale many elements, …
Was quite a good game, but the devs did not take human nature into account. Unfortunately.. as per usual we have a tendency to ruin everything we touch. Shadowbane was no different.
Very interested to see how this MMOcromancy turns out. What a thrill for Shadowbane fans old and new.
Hmm. ChangYou were the people behind Zentia, weren’t they? That was one of the best “imported” mmorpgs I ever played. I wish they’d bring that back instead!
Yup and yup. I adored Zentia too. I think it might have just been the two of us and Beau. lol. :P
Four of us then, brilliant little MMO that was.
Unfortunately they closed it down in China, which ultimately let to it being closed in the west too :(
Oh last I checked it was still up in China! I didn’t realize it was gone there too, damn.