Defiance and Defiance 2050 will shut down on April 29, Trion Worlds announced on Steam yesterday. Both games will be downloadable and playable until that date.
The decision to shutter both games came down to financial sustainability, with Trion World concluding that “both games could no longer sustain themselves.” Starting today, players will no longer be able to buy in-game items or resources using real-world cash. And prices on all in-game items are being slashed, so folks can spend all their remaining bits before the end of the world. Players who spent any cash on either game in the last few months will be able to transfer those bits over to any Gamingo game.
The original Defiance was released on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in April 2013, just a few months before the release of the Xbox One and PS4. It was an MMO-shooter and was a tie-in to a science fiction show on SyFy, also called Defiance. The connection wasn’t meant to be a superficial marketing stunt cooked up after the game and show were released. The developers and producers worked together. For example, the show’s writers and producers planned on having characters ride horses, but this was changed when the game developers nixed the idea, presumably because it would have been too technically demanding. The show and game also planned to have character and storyline crossovers.
[referenced id=”570372″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/ok-this-is-a-rather-cool-way-to-link-defiance-game-and-show/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/05/15/18nqy8j6ykibajpg-300×169.jpg” title=”OK, This Is A Rather Cool Way To Link Defiance Game And Show” excerpt=”I’ve been sceptical about the extent that SyFy’s Defiance television show would be interacting with Trion Worlds’ Defiance MMO, but this is pretty cool. This is Tiio Horn as Rynn, a member of the Irathient race that found herself in hot water in the TV series over the past two…”]
Unfortunately, most of those plans never happened. The show wasn’t a big hit, and the game launched in a rough state. In 2015, after three seasons, SyFy cancelled the show, leaving the game’s future unclear. But Trion Worlds continued to support it, even releasing a big update after the show’s cancelation that was considered the fourth season of the show.
In 2018, Trion Worlds released a remastered and reworked version of the game for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Defiance 2050 would be free-to-play at launch, unlike the original Defiance, and would include new content set decades after the show’s storyline. In April 2020, the original Defiance on Xbox 360 was shutdown.
Now, almost a year later, all the other versions of this strange and ambitious MMO are finally coming to a close after eight years of service. For those who want to return to either game and relive some memories or experience Defiance for the first time, Trion Worlds will allow new players to sign up and download the game until April 29.
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