A long running fantasy MMO that was once seen as a contender for success is officially shutting down on May 1. That game is Shadowbane, which officially launched March 25. 2003. The original developer was Austin-based Wolfpack Studios which created the game for Take Two Interactive before it switched publishers to Ubisoft. Ubisoft then bought Wolfpack in March 2004.

Unfortunately the subscription-based game never caught on and in March 2006 the game was turned into a free-to-play MMO title (with some in-game and browers ads). Wolfpack Studios was also shut down although a new development team, Stray Bullet Games (made up of former Wolfpack members) were contracted to maintain and update the game by Ubisoft. A last ditch attempt to keep the game going was made in 2008 with the Shadowbane reboot which basically restarted the game from stratch. With the shutdown of Shadowbane, Stray Bullet Games can likely concentrate their work on their next project, a fantasy MMO title of which details have not yet been revealed.

[Via Massively]