The Flame is Gone for Firefall

The online MMORPG game from Red 5 Studios has finally closed it’s doors. Firefall came around in July 2014, and had a tumultuous life. Before it even got to that point, the game had been reportedly in development for at least five years before it’s PAX debut in 2010. From there, they slowly phased into beta cycles for the game before finally releasing it in 2014. The last year of the game’s life was when the signs began to show up. Back in December it was reported that Red 5 had missed payroll. In the months that followed that, there were high-profile layoffs and departures surfacing in the media. By May, The9 (the owners of Red 5) traded a huge part of their stake to a cashmere manufacturing business. There was a brief glimmer of hope with the news that mobile and console ports were planned. But then last month, all of the US team was laid off. It was only a matter of time.

The website’s functionality is either partially or entirely gone in sections, players are no longer able to log in to their game accounts, and the Steam page for the game has been removed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GtUcLktpxw

Players had five different classes to choose from, each coming with it’s own set of abilities and the power to glide across the map. A major focus of the game was it’s PvP and PvE combat, but there were other MMORPG elements such as social features and player driven economies involved too. The game’s story started on Earth in 2178. There was an asteroid that hit the planet and threw it into an age of darkness. But humanity rebounds, discovering the energy source known as Crystite from the asteroid allows them to travel into space. Wanting more of this stuff, they found where the asteroid came from and brought loads of Crystite back to Earth. Getting too far ahead of themselves, humanity builds a warship that ends up causing a rift in space-time. Your journey began in 2237, traveling around the last surviving sections of the planet that weren’t destroyed by the Melding.

Normally I’d list the social media links for the game here, but since the game is dead there’s really no point. If you want to pay your respects to the deceased, the remnants of the community have gathered at the subreddit to have one last get together.