Slay Together, an independently developedMMORPG (very independently, as in a team of one), has shut down development.
As the ambitious project was being made by one developer, it wasn't surprising that updates on progress were few and far between. The MMORPG’s developer, Jannick Leismann, shared a new update today to announce the end of development.
The update, on the Slay Together Steam page, is titled “Further Plan”, and the shutdown and development end notice even began with an acknowledgment that far apart updates were the norm. “To keep it short, I finally made the decision to cancel the project as I am not able to finish it. It was a fun ride; I spent thousands of hours developing the game hand-in-hand with your feedback. But as many of you know, I'm a single independent developer with limited time,” the announcement reads.
Given that one developer had made a playable game that some were still playing (officially in Early Access) and offering feedback on and kept it running (and updated) for about five years, is pretty remarkable, and shows love for the genre that still exists in many corners. As for those further plans, along with the cancellation of development, we also learn how things will proceed going forward.
With the end of development, Slay Together will be removed from the Steam store, but if you already play it, you’ll be able to access it from your library as long as the servers remain up. Development may be stopping, but Leismann plans to keep the server up for an unknown period of time, but at least a year.
As for his own future, he explained that he underestimated the work it takes to complete MMORPG development. “And now the time has come for me to move on in my journey as a game developer, next time with a project that I can complete,” he says.
