According to this article over at Massively, Perpetual Entertainment, who recently closed down their nearly-released Gods & Heroes MMO, is about to shut down altogether. It was clear from all we’ve been hearing over the past year that they were in trouble, but who knew just how bad it was?
The dev blogs they’ve been posting have shown Star Trek Online at a somewhat early phase of development – we’ve mostly seen some level design and know little about the actual gameplay – so I doubt it would be unrealistic to think that Perpetual’s STO game hasn’t much more going for it than a design document, a demoralized development team, and the Star Trek license itself.
What’s next? Perhaps a merge with another company? SOE took in Sigil, and has had dealings with Perpetual in the past, but unless they let go some of their lesser-loved children, I can’t imagine they have the resources to develop an entirely new game when they have five MMOs in house, a publishing deal with another, and three more on the way (DC Universe Online, The Agency, and Free Realms).
Mission-based, instanced, team-oriented gameplay… I dunno… seems to me Cryptic are experts there and maybe they’re looking for something to do, now that City of Heroes/Villains is in NCSoft’s spandex-gloved hands…