stray-bullet-games posts

Players of the long running fantasy MMO Shadowbane have gotten a new lease on life. The Ubisoft-published game was supposed to shut down its servers on May 1 after a five year run. However the game's life has now been extended two more months to July 1, according to a post on the game's official message boards. It states, "This should allow the community enough time to play out its final days appropriately."

Not only that, but the game could go on for even longer. Our sister site Massively reports that free-to-play MMO company Aeria Games is chatting with Ubisoft about possibly taking over Shadowbane, if messages on the company's Twitter feed are to be believed. It's unknown if the game's current developer, Stray Bullet Games, would continue if Shadowbane were to keep going under a new publisher.

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]

A few months ago we posted up a feature story that took a look at many games that are currently being developed under the radar. We called them "Black Ops games" and since then we have dug even deeper and found even more game titles that as of this writing are currently being created under the cone of silence.

We got what little info we collected on these titles and brought them up into the light for all to see. They include a sci-fi shooter from a MMO developer, a next-gen strategy game, and a company that has raised over $100 million to develop two MMO titles. What is it that they and other developers don't want you to know about yet? Read on to find out more.

Click on the image above to continue reading Even more Black Ops PC games

A while back the former members of the Austin based Wolfpack Studios (creators of the Shadowbane MMO) reformed as Stray Bullet Games and announced plans to make a brand new MMO title. Details of the MMO are still a secret but this week the developer announced that they have struck a deal with Korean based Neowiz to publish their unnamed game title.

Along with the publisher announcement, Stray Bullet Games gave a few more hints about the unnamed MMO title, saying it would be a" fully-realized, ongoing MMO battle experience that combines action with tactical and strategic game play." The press release also hinted the game would have "individual characters, guilds, and global factions engage in mass combat that is meaningful, exciting, and above all fun." A new piece of concept art for the game was also released and is reproduced above. No release date for the game was announced.