WOLCEN Studio made an unexpected announcement late last week regarding their multiplayer Action RPG, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, revealing that after September 3rd it will no longer be a multiplayer game. It’s a peculiar situation for us here at Delisted Games but one that I think we wouldn’t mind seeing more of. Wolcen won’t be going away entirely as is typically the case with server-based, multiplayer experiences. Instead, the team is putting in the work to remove the online infrastructure and allow players to continue their game offline, and with content and progression intact.
Thank you for your unwavering support and patience. It’s been a while since our last update, and we apologize for the silence. However, we had to make serious decisions that required careful reflection and time. Thank you for your unwavering support and dedication. We are fully aware of the challenges that have emerged from the early technical decisions made regarding the game’s architecture, challenges that are insurmountable without a complete technology overhaul.
We have diligently updated Wolcen, enhancing every facet of the game from introducing new chapters and items to improving UI, animations, and the meticulous balancing of skills, items, and gameplay, alongside technical enhancements. Despite these efforts and the team’s dedication behind our patches, we’ve encountered foundational hurdles that prevent further improvements under the existing framework.
It is with a heavy heart that we announce a significant change: Starting September 3, 2024, Wolcen will no longer support multiplayer functionality. Additionally, we will cease further development and support for the game. This decision allows us to focus on new projects, carrying forward the lessons learned from Wolcen. We are committed to excellence and driven to create new experiences and adventures that we hope you will be eager to join.
We want to assure you that Wolcen will still be available to play in single-player mode and to purchase at a new, permanently reduced price. Your feedback has always been invaluable, and it will continue to guide the development of our future projects. We’ve learned a lot from developing and supporting Wolcen but more than that, we have learned a lot from you and we are internally preparing to make sure lessons have been learned and we will be ready to have a stronger connection with all of you, and our community.
Thank you for your continued support. We are excited about the future and cannot wait to embark on these new journeys with you, setting new standards for what we can achieve together.
Wolcen Announcement – May 30, 2024
Wolcen community member CoTTo added in a follow-up comment that current players will have the ability to transfer their existing character data into an offline file, seemingly with all content and progress intact. Achievement and quest progress will also reportedly remain intact once the game transitions to offline-only.
We will have an “Import Online Character” button that downloads and converts your online character to an offline one, even when the server are already shut down.
Also:
Reply by CoTTo on Wolcen’s Steam Forums – May 30, 2024
items are kept everywhere (chest, inventory, equipped)
previous progress is saved everywhere (CoS, Story, Warmap).
cosmetics inventory transfers correctly same goes for colors they get copied from online characters to all existing offline characters.
After its 1.0 release on Steam in 2020 the studio would add a number of content updates over the years — along with dozens of patches and hotfixes — before its wider debut on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and the Epic Games Store just this past Spring. Each of those store pages now carries a smaller notice relating to the September deadline.
Although the circumstances are different, the news isn’t dissimilar to what Airship Syndicate recently announced for its own Action RPG, Wayfinder. That game is currently being reworked to remove online accounts and in-game purchases, transitioning into a product that the team hopes can “be around to play forever”. It’s a trend that would be great to see embraced in the future, allowing more games to remain on sale without a team being burdened by fees and maintenance of its online infrastructure.
Thanks to everyone who pointed out the news on this one, we’ve added the date to the Watch List calendar for now.