The next game in Daybreak Games' Everquest franchise, planned MMO Everquest Next, has been cancelled. Announced back in 2013, Next was set to release on PS4 at some point, but – as president Russ Shanks said in an open letter – it simply wasn't good enough. Shanks said: "As we put together the pieces [of Everquest Next] we found that it wasn't fun. In final review, we had to face the fact that Everquest Next would not meet the expectations we – and all of you – have for the worlds of Norrath."
It's pretty understandable that Daybreak would have to cancel the game considering its current situation. Not only has it recently split from Sony and lost co-founder John Smedley, but it's also working on two H1Z1 games, three Everquest games, and DC Universe Online. It's been a turbulent time for the firm in the past couple months, so it's no surprise that the game would be scrapped if it wasn't turning out well.
How do you feel about the cancellation? Do you think that Daybreak should've persevered, or was it a lost cause? Contain your sadness in the comments below.
[source daybreakgames.com]
Comments 12
I always thought this looked cool, but I'm not surprised to see it go. I think Sony's decision to sell off Sony Online Entertainment is starting to look more and more like a positive move.
Never did like Everquest, I was an Ultima Online guy!
Personally this wasn't on my 'wanted' list along with the other games mentioned here. I don't play and have no interest in MMO's, MOBA's etc so this cancellation doesn't have any impact on my gaming.
Whether this gets 'totally' scrapped or gets revised or transformed into something else, time will tell. I do think it seems a waste of time, energy, money etc to just write off completely but if its not up to the standard they were expecting, its more detrimental to release it as that could affect their name and brand.
Everquest cost me a marriage. Justice at last!
Kinda lame, but oh well. I would have definitely given the game a shot of it would've been up to par. I've wanted to try Everquest since I first heard of it. Maybe they could just beef up whichever version is currently out and bring that to PS4?
@kyleforrester87 Same here!!! <3
I was kind of looking forward to trying it out since I've never played Everquest but I'd rather have it cancelled if it truly wasn't the game they were hoping for.
Doesn't surprise me, MMOs are a dying genre now. Now it's all about MOBAs and other competitive online games like CoD and Overwatch.
EverQuest was my favourite MMO franchise. It's sad to see it go, been waiting for it for years. I enjoy MMOs but today it all boils down to "amassing damage output". I liked the oldschool MMOs where your distinct role actually made a difference. Using snares and crowd control to tilt a difficult situation to your favour when encountering mobs, single pulling or fear kiting mobs way too high of level for you with your necromancer... good times in EQ, the most tactical of all MMOs in my opinion. Now it's all bell and whistles and no substance.
Damn.
@BAMozzy I am sure they will be able to reuse many of the assets that were already created for this game in a future iteration. That is normally the case when a general gets cancelled, or they sell them off to another dev.
@rykkchii The original? Man that thing ate up a good chunk of my younger life, lol.
@Scollurio Agree, original ever quest was very tactical, and demanding, at the highest levels. Loved taking on the mods, or whatever they called them back then, God like enemies lol.
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