Back in December 2021, Gearbox’s Embracer Group bought up Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic, meaning whatever Gearbox decided to do could possibly affect the various MMOs under both studio’s banners. So naturally people got worried when they learned that Gearbox is shutting down its game forums in favor of Discord communities, but it turns out that MMORPG fans have nothing to fear.
Gearbox moved its original forums to a read-only format earlier this week while it granted fans 30 days to save any threads they wanted before the forums ultimately shutdown. According to the announcement, the forums’ closure is because player interaction was supposedly moving away from said forums. The alert otherwise confirms that support matters will still be handled by Gearbox’s support site, but otherwise game-specific Discords would be where discussion and information continues.
“During the past year, we noticed many of our community members prefer to engage on our other social platforms—and that’s great. […] Looking at where the conversations are taking place and feedback is expressed, we want to continue that dialog on our social channels where much of the community is getting their information,” the post reasons.
We inquired with Gearbox about the fate of the forums our readers would care most about, and we received an official statement that this decision will not affect Cryptic’s MMOs. “Arc forums will remain open for all of Cryptic Studios’ titles, including Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, and Champions Online,” Gearbox PR confirms.
