Quantic Dream’s inexplicable live service hero shooter dies an ignominious death

Marathon may not have turned out to be the next Concord, but Spellcasters Chronicles might now have a decent claim to the title. Perhaps Quantic Dream, the studio known exclusively for story-driven singleplayer experiences that have about as much actual gameplay as reading a book does, was not the right choice to develop a live-service hero shooter. God love ‘em, though, some heady combination of self-destructive self-confidence and pressure from their multiplayer-obsessed publisher NetEase made them try anyway.

I’m going to skip right to the end of this story: it crashed and burned. Of course it did. No one with any sense expected otherwise, including, I imagine, everyone within Quantic Dream itself. Spellcasters Chronicles launched in early access three months ago, and according to a recent announcement on its Steam page, will not be leaving it. “Dead before arrival” is a new one.

Today, Quantic Dream is announcing the discontinuation of the development of Spellcasters Chronicles.

With this project, our teams set out to explore new creative territories and create a bold, original multiplayer experience. Spellcasters Chronicles allowed us to experiment with new concepts and bring to life an ambitious game shaped by the talent, creativity, and dedication of everyone involved.

However, in today’s particularly challenging market environment, the game has not reached the audience needed to ensure its long-term sustainability. We have therefore made the difficult decision to refocus our efforts on our other projects.

As part of this decision, the studio will undertake an internal reorganization. We are fully committed to handling this transition with fairness, care, and respect, and will prioritize internal reassignments wherever possible to support our other productions.

The development of Star Wars Eclipse is not affected by this decision and continues as planned.

At least they’re also offering a refund, as ridiculous as the concept of microtransactions in an early-access game is. Quantic Dream is not the kind of low-budget indie studio that needs them to survive. Hopefully, NetEase will realize what a colossal blunder this entire venture has been and allow Quantic Dream to reassign those resources to the game everyone actually wants to see them working on. Currently, Star Wars Eclipse‘s release date sits somewhere between 2030 and the heat death of the universe.