October 12th, 2007

Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising Canceled

Picture Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, a promising MMORPG in development at Perpetual Entertainment. It received quite a lot of prizes from established online gaming magazines last year at E3, including the best show and best game. The title has been in closed beta testing for roughly a year and the launch date was scheduled to fall 2007, but it got pushed back to early next year. So basically we have a game nearing completion, having received good previews
and just waiting to hit gold status and be rushed off to the DVD factories … when we hear it was cancelled. Do you ever wonder what makes the world go around? Everyone has an answer, but when it comes to the world of gaming, I believe money is all that matters.

Perpetual Entertainment indefinitely delayed Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, which usually translates in canceling the project. In Perpetual entertainment President and Executive Producer Chris McKibbin own words: “The Perpetual team is faced with a unique challenge of simultaneously developing both Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online in addition to growing our Online Game Platform business. After assessing all of Perpetual's opportunities, we have made the decision to put the development of Gods & Heroes on indefinite hold.”

Gods and Heroes granted the Gods of the Roman pantheon a significant role in gameplay, as you could choose worshiped deities right from the start and align your army with their related attributes. While exploring the realm you were the leader of a small size raiding party of henchmen which in turn could be individually upgraded and bestowed better armors and weapons. To face greater challenges you will eventually train better soldiers and grant them more varied roles within the group setup in what was supposed to be the first multiplayer online squad based game.

Warcry followed the event closely and they first thought problems arose due to Perpetual changing owners. The truth is not far as new investors have been quoted, thus the release policy might have changed. Apparently most of the Gods and Heroes staff has been let go, with only a small number of people transferring to the Star Trek Online project. This comes only a few weeks after Perpetual downsized the team and pushed back the release date.

I feel bad to see them putting the last nail in an otherwise healthy game, but what I dislike more about the whole affair is that the producers came to this decision by weighting the effort needed for their other game in the making, Star Trek Online. The platform development will go on as scheduled. The team will continue working on the Star Trek title, in the same San Francisco studio and under the same management.