Back in April, we got the sad but not entirely unexpected news that XLGAMES had decided to sunset the remains of ArcheAge, including the western version of the game that was under Kakao’s stewardship. The date of execution was set for this morning – and now it’s gone after just 10 years online as one of the few modernish MMORPG sandboxes on the market.
Kakao chalked the sunset up very clearly to the “declining number of active players,” but our readers know there’s more to it than that. The game had been shuffled between western publishers – first Trion, then Gamigo, then Kakao in 2021 – and as we’ve argued, server issues, cheating, land rushes, and the dishonest handling of ArcheAge Unchained eventually took their toll. Last summer, rumors that XLGAMES was restructuring and eyeballing an ArcheAge sunset seized the community, and though Kakao denied it, it happened anyway.
The ArcheAge subreddit has filled up with goodbyes and clips from the game’s final moments, as MMO players do.
Fans of the franchise can still look forward to ArcheAge 2 (delayed to 2025-ish?) and multiple player-run rogue servers, so at least there’s that.
RIP ArcheAge.
