Trion Worlds announced on Wednesday that development for the upcoming MMORTS, End of Nations, would be continued in-house and that Petroglyph's work on the game had concluded. Today, Petroglyph released its official statement about the change.

Here is the statement in its entirety:

"Petroglyph Games Inc., an innovative studio that has created and launched multiple successful games over the years, has concluded its work as developer on End of Nations™ for publisher Trion Worlds. As a result, Petroglyph has reduced its workforce by 19 employees.

The team at Petroglyph is very excited about End of Nations, a title which earned more than 50 nominations and awards while in development, and looks forward to its upcoming release.

Additionally, Petroglyph recently moved into a larger facility in Las Vegas to house its current headcount of over 90 employees. Development work continues on multiple projects across different genres and platforms, both internally and externally funded, with releases planned through 2014."

Thank you,

Chuck Kroegel, CEO/General Manager

Petroglyph Games, Inc.

I think they have figured out that there's not much real interest in this genre... finally o_0

fyi to dev teams, if you cannot keep testers testing for free, do you really think your project has a shot at even mediocre success?

Originally posted by thecapitaine
Seems likely that Trion wasn't happy with where End of Nations was so close to launch and decided to salvage what they could.  I'm not sure what that means for the game, though.  Is Trion going to dedicate the staff to finish the game or does it go into a cupboard never to be seen again?

Its quite clear that Trion is planning to go through with it and launch the game eventually. Its more than likely that it was stuck in development hell in Petroglyph. 

Originally posted by VendettaDFA
Sounds like Trion wanted to recoup investment on the game. Petroglyph was still tweeking, and in the end the beancounters prevailed. Expect patches... hope for the best ... but expect patches.

IMO the game needs an overhaul not tweaking, if there is any studio that can save EoN it is Trion. I hope they fix it until the fans love the game, as that has been their motto in all these videos their devs always talk about how all their games must meet a very high standard, they don't want to be associated with sub-par products.

I hope that Trion delivers again, as I think the potential is there, but the current state of end of nations leaves a lot to be desired.

I found the game to be extrmely boring. Not sure what they can do to fix what they have, but I think it needs to be redone from scratch. I'm not sure what or where they were trying to go with the game but what I experienced was less than fun and was really bland.

Originally posted by DMKano
Yeah Petroglyph is a smal studio and they have other games in the works. So I think that Trion was unhappy at the pace of development progress so they took it in house where it can get some dedicated attention from a larger dev group.

Petroglyph might only house 90 employees but i am not so sure i would use the term small.Epic games only has 160 yet is a very big player in the gaming industry.

They are actually Westwood studios former employees,the creators of Command nConquer.Who better to design a RTS for Trion than the forefathers,makes sense to me.

Some guy on Gamasutra claims he offered to help them on this game,which he says is a spin off of the 2001 Nexon game Shattered galaxy.Funny thing is that game also received awards but failed [appartently] due to poor graphics.

There is so much specualtion as to why the 19 layoffs and making a statement to moving into a LARGER facility.it sounds too fishy,why go bigger while laying off?It sounds similar to CPP's move when they downsized,moving everyone closer was a better overall move.

All i know judging from what little Trion is telling us about the game,it sounds on the surface like a VERY simple design based on only two factions and only 3 choices per faction.SO why the problems?That part tells me this is just big business working as usual,trying to get maximum value for their buck.All Trion needed is a window to recoup money from the contract,any sign of contract failure and they jumped at it.Petro responds by laying off those that were working directly on that game.Speculation ,i know but laying off workers so close to Beta seems odd,what if Beta reveals tons of problems,then you have 19 new people trying to figure it out?

PG has failed to notice potential in good games.

Their MOBA attempt "Rise of Immortals" now called "Battle for Graxia" is probably the worst MOBA on the market and now they get rid of End of Nations which actually has potential and strikes in a format there's not many games of.

I'm glad Trion took over, maybe we'll see more RPG elements in the game now.