In a shock move today, Codemasters have announced the cancellation of their very promising MMORPG Dragon Empires. This one MMORPG that was attempting to break the mould and do something a little different and it's a real shame to see this project cease. Codemasters made the following statement today:

Codemasters has taken the decision to cancel further development of Dragon Empires, the company’s massively multiplayer online role playing project.

Dragon Empires received incredible support from its online community and won acclaim from PC and online media while in development. However, technical issues have resulted in the project’s discontinuation.

Many of the game’s development team, including programmers and artists, are being transferred to Codemasters’ internal development studios to work on current and future titles.

The decision to close Dragon Empires’ development does not impact on Codemasters’ long-term ambitions in the massively multiplayer online gaming market and the company remains very active in evaluating future opportunities.

Loadedinc has followed this game pretty closely over the past year or so and every time we've gone hands-on with a new build it just looked better and better. Is the MMORPG market becoming over-saturated? A question you have to ask and it may be one reason the plug has been pulled although they have said it was cancelled due to 'technical isues'. Codemasters community manager also added:

As you are all aware, we did have some difficulty with certain aspects of the code, namely the server issues. Over the last month or two we have been reviewing the situation and looking for ways to resolve them, which inlcuded seeking external help.

However, after a full, in-depth analysis, research and review, it has been decided by the board that the project has too many risks to be considered viable at this time/

It's a sad day for the MMORPG genre, the DE development team had some cracking ideas.

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