Hey, remember Leafling Online? It first scooted onto our radar about two years ago as a free-to-play retro 2-D, nostalgia-driven open PvP sandbox; players described it as a cross between “Ragnarok Online, RuneScape and Zenonia.” Our PvP columnist Sam Kash almost immediately dived into the game, finding it surprisingly cute and deep, though heavy on grinding. It was expected to fully launch out of early access by the end of 2023.
Unfortunately, it’s never going to make it to that date; the game has abruptly sunsetted, following what was apparently a final attempt to revive the title with a fresh start server back in November. Here’s the announcement:
“After years of service, Leafling has come to the end of it’s lifetime. What started as just a side hobby project for me and some friends to have some fun in ended up exploding into a really fun niche project that entertained over 75,000 players! Sadly, however, due it not being designed for a truly long-term project from the onset, the game was plagued by it’s fair share of issues and over the years player numbers slowly dwindled down and interest died down. Thank you to all of you who joined the world of Artemia and made memories we’ll never forget!”
That’s 75,000 total players, of course; Steamcharts says the game’s peak was around 200 concurrent players in the first week of its launch.
It does sound as if the developers at Celtaria Productions are already working on a replacement, however. “This isn’t the end of games however as me and the team have expanded and have begun work on our next project that is fully fleshed out from the beginning to be a long term fun online game,” the lead dev writes. “More information will follow down the road.”
