Titan Falls: Blizzard Shuts Down Next-Gen MMO After 7 Years In Development

Blizzard has held the crown for the most successful MMO with World of Warcraft for what seems like forever now. Surprisingly, then, we’ve learned this week that the company has decided to cease production of its follow up next-gen MMO, codenamed Titan.

Blizzards Co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime had this to say about the situation: “We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs,” Morhaime said. “So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn’t come together.”

Morhaime continued on to point out more specific reasons as to why Titan was canceled: “We didn’t find the fun, we didn’t find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that’s the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no.”

The reevaluation period Morhaime is referring to happened back in May of 2013. The company had decided to change the direction of Titan by going back to the drawing board, improving the game’s technology and reassigning almost 100 employees. This drastic shift had many concerned that the title was in serious trouble. Unfortunately, with all of Blizzard’s prior success, it did not guarantee that it could capture the same fun and magic with Titan.

It’s been estimated that this 7 year failed endeavor will cost Blizzard somewhere around $50 million dollars. This is a large sum, but because of World of Warcraft‘s epic success, it shouldn’t hurt the company that much.

There are few studios that will  just cancel a game because it isn’t fun and take the loss. For that, I applaud Blizzard for not trying to swindle its way out of the black on this. There are few times I’ve been proud of any company, count this situation as one of them.