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No use Trion: End of Nations development “on hold” pending “potential paths forward”

End of Nations had become a vehicular MOBA - which is precisely what Transformers Universe is now, come to think of it.

End of Nations is like that friend you’re expecting to visit who keeps ringing you with updates. “I’m on the train, be with you shortly,” they say. And then an hour later, “I’m on the bus, just around the corner.” And then, at dusk, “I’m practically outside.” But they never turn up, and instead turn up dead in a ditch the next day. You know the type.

Trion Worlds ceased their efforts to revive End of Nations at the tail end of last year, it turns out – and ever since it’s been “on hold” while the company work out what to do with it.

Yesterday, Videogamer noticed that Trion seemed set on wiping the memory of End of Nations from the planet: the game’s website was pulled offline, and all mention of it stripped from the publisher’s website.

Soon afterwards, Trion released a statement.

“Internal development on End of Nations was put on hold in late 2013 while we evaluated potential paths forward for the title,” wrote the company. “We’re currently focusing the company’s energy and creativity on Rift, Defiance, Trove, ArcheAge, and some new projects that we will be revealing soon.”

It’s the latest swerve along a road to release paved with potholes. End of Nations began as an ambitiously-acronymed MMORTS at Petroglyph – but after a year, a grim beta and a round of layoffs it became the ward of its publisher, Trion.

Trion promptly turned End of Nations into a MOBAand issued press releases to that effect – but we can only presume their more recent beta turned up similarly poor readings, and the decision was made to bundle End of Nations into the freezer.

I’d say End of Nations was cryogenically frozen, but nothing ever is in game development: engines age, code is forgotten, and all too soon it becomes a smaller task to begin work on something brand new.

Given the great promise of Trove and Rift’s free-to-play Steam success, I can’t imagine a middling MOBA is going to rise to the top of Trion’s to-do list anytime soon. Can you?

Cheers, RPS.