When a Game Dies Early

It's the week before the end of the year, and as most people, I find myself working to finish off a list. The list is very different for everyone, ranging from making sure all the bills are paid, to finishing up that first draft of a book... or maybe finishing that list of games you really wanted to play during 2015. For me, it's the gaming list, that hope to clear your backlog, and I'm enjoying the task: finally playing through Destiny, working with Eric through a full season of Diablo III content, and so on.

Except this year, I found myself avoiding playing a game I really enjoyed earlier on. I've waited until now to work through the final few moments of it's story before we say goodbye to 2015 for good. This reluctance hasn't been procrastination, but instead, a wish to hold onto a game that I had fun with, to savor the last few moments of it before it's gone; Moonrise by Undead Labs, the promising monster-catching game for PC and mobile, is turning the servers off at midnight on December 31st, switching off the world it was hatching before it ever really started.

Normally, we try to focus specifically on the positive in the gaming world, but sometimes, it's also good to focus on the things that aren't quite working out as well. Sometimes, it's important to try and understand how things went wrong so that we know where to go in the future. But that, I suppose, is part of the problem with what's happened with Moonrise; by all outside perception, the game not only looked good, but honestly promising.

We wrote about the game during our time with it at PAX East, and we loved it. Here, at long last, was a new contender against the monolith that is Pokemon. A new take, a fresh spin on the monster-collecting motif that many of us grew up enjoying, and now perhaps were a bit burnt out on. It was trying a few new things, such as being available on both Steam and Mobile cross-platform, while also staying true to some now time-honored traditions of the genre.

Then, all at once, the Founder of Undead Labs, Jeff Strain, came forward on August 28th and published an open letter, stating that the game was being retired due to future financial concerns. It was still in early access at this point, still being worked on and developed into a full balanced product, and so the news rang out as a complete surprise to near everyone.

It's a shame because I well and truly enjoyed playing Moonrise, and many other people did too. Many people were let down, even devastated after putting in hours of play-time and feedback during the early access to see it all crumble. If you were go to onto Steam reviews, you can also see the uglier side, where nasty comments and remarks were leveled towards the developer for attempting to fleece their customer.

No signs point to any get-rich-quick schemes though, truth be told. Honestly, in my opinion, what we are seeing here are pains of an industry that is growing more rapidly and weirdly than ever before. Some AAA studios close up shop while small indie developers manage to strike it big for a tenth of the production cost. At the same time, some indie developers are becoming reliant on things like early access to try and raise awareness and funding in a growing, burgeoning library of games available. Perhaps more specific to Moonrise, many games are trying to host large multiplayer servers, and the cost of keeping these servers open can be prohibitive... it's been seen before, when a promising, big-publisher backed MOBA, Dawngate, was heavily pushed, and then suddenly dropped when the numbers weren't matching powerhouses in that game genre. Maybe it was how that, in a genre dominated by just one franchise, there wasn't much room for error available financially. Part of me wonders if Moonrise was just a gamble on the wrong economics; Undead Labs was trying to make a quality, detailed project while also being free-to-play on mobile, and might have gotten burned because of it. From out here, it's hard to say what it was specifically happened.

Whatever the cause, I'm genuinely sad to see Moonrise go.

This is relatively old news, as the announcement was made back at the end of August, but its relevant because of how Undead Labs decided to shut down the game; slowly and respectfully, leaving enough time to play through the rest of the game and get our hours in. That's what I've doing this week actually, before the end of Moonrise's world on 12/31/2015. Playing through the story, burning through missions, collecting and evolving Solari without care for the long run planning I might for forming the perfect team. My goal for once isn't the domination of a game, but instead to experience as much as I can before this all vanishes into the ether.

It's still fun, you know. I'm still enjoying the game, just like I did right after PAX East. The animations for the monsters are crisp and fresh, and the movement towards real-time action rather than turn-based fights really ramped up the feeling of urgency that can be missing in a game like Pokemon. The arena fights, where you plug in a random set of monsters against others, are still frenetically fun experiences, where I'm trying to learn as much as I can about my combos while surviving the incoming barrage from the other side.

This is a game that I would have gladly spent 20-30 bucks on for some good single-player story. I was even intrigued by the competitive multiplayer, because this game was built with that in mind, rather than being shoehorned in at the last minute. There was honest care and attention to detail and some real fun hidden here. I know that on larger news sites, we can often see beautiful concept art and alphas of games that will never be, but here, this cancellation hits home, because I was able to actually hold the game in my hands, play it, and feel the potential of a game getting its wings and soaring.

As I post this article, there's about 24 hours left, before the world of Moonrise is overtaken by its monsters. If you have the game, play it while you can, get some good, fun, fond screenshots of it burned into your mind before the servers turn off for good.

Thanks for the memories, Undead Labs. Best of luck on whatever project comes next, and thanks again for the chance to play through on this one.