Daybreak Cancels EverQuest Next

Games are canceled every day--some we’ve heard about, but most are chopped or destroyed well before the public even get a hint of their existences. But when a really big game is canceled, well, it can even take jaded pseudo-journalists like myself by surprise. Such was the case when, late last week, Daybreak Entertainment, the company behind Planetside 2, H1Z1, and DC Universe Online, announced that their long-anticipated, extremely ambitious title EverQuest Next, was being canceled.

I’ll let the President of Daybreak Games fill you in. His notice was as brief as it was informative and slightly self-congratulatory.

“For the past 20 years EverQuest has been a labor of love. What started as a deep passion of ours, as game creators, grew into a much larger passion shared by you, millions of players and Daybreakers alike. Watching EverQuest’s ability to entertain and bring people together has inspired and humbled us. It’s shaped our culture and has emboldened us to take aggressive risks with our game ideas and products. When we decided to create the next chapter in the EverQuest journey, we didn’t aim low. We set out to make something revolutionary.

For those familiar with the internals of game development, you know that cancellations are a reality we must face from time to time. Inherent to the creative process are dreaming big, pushing hard and being brutally honest with where you land. In the case of EverQuest Next, we accomplished incredible feats that astonished industry insiders. Unfortunately, as we put together the pieces, we found that it wasn’t fun. We know you have high standards when it comes to Norrath and we do too. In final review, we had to face the fact that EverQuest Next would not meet the expectations we – and all of you – have for the worlds of Norrath.

Not enough fun, eh? I wonder how they came to that verdict. It’d be easier to believe they just couldn’t get all the pieces fit together.

The whole premise, to those of you who weren’t around, was that EverQuest Next wanted to be both a traditional MMORPG as well as a Minecraft-style building simulator. Environments were supposed to be completely destructible, players were supposed to be able to build towns and cities, and giant monsters would periodically threaten your creations. You could even make blueprints of your best creations to sell to other players.

Combining all that in a modern MMORPG would be a monumental task. Especially when you consider that a good portion of MMORPG players simply like to wreak havoc. Allowing them to destroy other people’s creations would be frustrating for the creators, while not allowing players to destroy each other’s works would be unrealistic and open far too many opportunities for trolling. In that respect, I can understand why Daybreak might not consider a game like this ‘fun’.

Still, it sounds like it had the potential to be magical, and it’s sad that we’re losing that magic. Here’s hoping a game developer somewhere figures out how to do it right, so we can experience the next step in a ‘living’ MMORPG world.