I’m sorry to report that Paizo has announced the end of Pathfinder Online. MOP readers know that the MMO was Kickstarted for over a million dollars back in 2012, but its development and staffing struggles led to mass Goblinworks layoffs in 2015, followed by several years of Paizo attempting to salvage the game and find new investors. Since then, the studio pushed the game into “open enrollment” last year and was still auctioning land early in 2021, though it appears that wasn’t enough to keep the lights on, if the sunset announcement is any judge.
“A little over six and a half years ago, Pathfinder Online launched into Early Enrollment and Pharasma’s Chosen began settling the Echo Wood. Since then, just as the Gray Lady’s intervention allowed the heroes of the Echo Wood to escape death over and over again, the amazing support from all our wonderful backers and players allowed our tiny team to stay online and keep improving the game year after year. It has been a privilege to see this world and this story brought to life through the dedicated players adventuring in it, but now the epic finale of Pathfinder Online draws near. In October, Nhur Athemon’s own Chosen will arrive to finish the war between death and undeath, with both the story of Pharasma’s Chosen and the online world they adventure in scheduled to end at Daily Maintenance on November 28. After that, the servers won’t be coming back up[.]”
Hopefully, anyway. “[I]t’s possible that we won’t be able to keep the servers running right up to November 28,” the studio admits. “The servers are getting quite old, and we won’t be able to switch over to the cloud before then.” Paizo does say it will offer refunds for “recently purchased” items and that it’ll construct a storyline based on the history of the game as it stands at the sunset, so maybe there’s a bit of point to playing to the end.
Our condolences to the remaining players and devs.
https://twitter.com/PFO_Paizo/status/1420113416379781121
