Star Wars Galaxies to implode end of 2011

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Sony has announced that its massively multiplayer sci-fi epic Star Wars Galaxies has run its course.

Launched in 2003, SWG lasted some eight years before Sony and LucasArts made the joint decision to pull the plug on the space opera.

In an announcement on the official forum, the two companies said they would end all services – both the MMOG and card trading game – on December 15th.

The statement said: “We are extremely grateful to all of the SWG fans. We have had the rare opportunity to host one of the most dedicated and passionate online gaming communities and we truly appreciate the support we’ve received from each and every one of you over the course of the past eight years.”

There are some slightly brighter spots of news, however. Firstly, Sony intends to go out with a bang – a big bang, perhaps – with a “galaxy-ending” event in the final days. And secondly, subscribers will play for free for the last two months of the game.

But that won’t be much consolation to those who had grown to love SWG’s sandbox approach to the MMOG. The real good news might well be that Sony appears to have another sandbox style MMOG in the pipeline, and the SWG devs are going to be working on that.

Meanwhile, Star Wars fans will just have to turn to the upcoming Bioware effort, Star Wars: The Old Republic, which should be out later this year, taking the relay baton from SWG.

It would seem that the emergence of Old Republic could be the reason for the closure of SWG, with LucasArts not wanting the complication or competition of having two official massively multiplayer licenses running at the same time.

Tags: sony