Electronic Arts has shut down Warhammer Online and Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Entertainment, the company announced today.
"We are closing the EA Mythic location in Fairfax, Virginia, as we concentrate mobile development in ou r other studio locations," reads an EA statement shared with GameSpot, confirming a report by Kotaku. "We are working with all impacted employees to provide assistance in finding new opportunities, either within EA or with other companies via an upcoming job fair."
< p dir="ltr" style="">Mythic was founded in 1995 and made a name for itself with MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot, which was released in 2001 and has continued to be supported ever since. In 2006, Electronic Arts acquired the studio and renamed it EA Mythic. It was then set to work on Warhammer Online, which came out in 2008 and quickly attracted 750,000 players--a number which rapid ly dropped off, resulting in a shakeup at the studio in 2009 that saw cofounder Mark Jacobs l eave the company. Mythic was brought into a new RPG/MMO group along with BioWare, and a year later it was folded into BioWare, being renamed BioWare Mythic in the process. Warhammer Online was taken offline last year after a very brief free-to-play stint.In recent years, Mythic, once a major developer in the MMO space, shifted its focus to mobile games, developing mobile titles Ultima Online and Dungeon Keeper, the latter of which has been maligned by everyone from fans to original creator Peter Molyneux.
It would appear the decision to shut Mythic down was made quite recently; a job listing for a software engineer position at the studio was posted online less than two weeks ago. It mentions seeking someone interested in "re-defining the RPG Mobile space working on exciting, genre defining IP."
| Chris Pereira is a freel ance writer for GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheSmokingManX |
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