Destroyed worlds (Closed & lost MMOs)

LOTRO developer Turbine's follow-up title to AC was closed December 30, 2005. The game is fondly remembered for it's high-quality writing.

Articles on the end of AC2:
- Wired News: What's life like on an online world that's about to end?
- Kill Ten Rats: The End Begins (And Ends)

The world ended with a bang on 28 February 2009 in the form of an ingame event that resulted the destruction of both the player-controlled AFS and the opposing Bane. NCSoft cited lower than expected subscriber numbers as the reason.

Tabula Rasa was a fairly innovative science fiction MMO in a genre crowded by fantasy titles.

PSO is part of the long-running Phantasy Star series of games. The last official servers went offline in April, 2007. An unofficial server named SCHTHACK has since been created so the game can still be played online in that form and is different from most of the games on this list in that it always also featured an offline mode so the destruction was never complete.

PSO's world is a scifi/Fantasy mix and the game has simplified game mechanics not totally different from Diablo.

Same as Above, but for the Gamecube and Xbox. Xbox servers went offline about a year after the Gamecube ones in April 22, 2008.

Based on the Need for Speed franchise, Electronic Arts envisioned an online community where one could buy classic muscle cars, tune them up, and then race against other online members. Ironically, it was shut down by EA Games in order to put more focus on The Sims Online.

In 2009, EA's Black Box division plans to launch a free-to-play Need for Speed: World Online, spiritual successor to Motor City Online. But instead of only targetting muscle cars, NFS: World Online will offer 'the most licensed cars ever seen from any NFS game'.

(Thanks Prelude!)

Closing on July 31, 2009 this game is still running for a few days when I write this. Matrix Online had a good run having been released in March 2005 and existing as part of SOE's Station Access for a long time even with very small subscriber numbers.

MxO featured a continuation of the storyline of the movies with told through live events where live team employees would sometimes play the parts of key characters.

Articles remembering The Matrix Online:
- Massively: So Long and Thanks for All the Woah
- Massively: So Long and Thanks for All the Woah Pt. 2

Closed on August 31, 2007. Vehicular combat with RPG elements in a post-apocalyptic future. NCSoft published this one as well and players were sent "Parting Gifts", one of them was an opportunity to take part in Tabula Rasa.

Shadowbane had long existed as a free to play title until July 1st, 2009. It was originally launched in March 25, 2003 as a commercial, subscription-model MMO.

The game had a focus on PVP and featured siege warfare.

Air Warrior was a multiplayer flight simulator where the players formed squadrons and made a career out of being a flying ace.

The game launched in September 2002 and had a run of two years as it was closed in September 2004. Developed by Westwood Studios and run by Electronic Arts, this was a Sci-Fi MMORPG. Although it peaked early and never gained much of a fan base, it was very well received by the people that experienced it. But with stiff competition from Star Wars Galaxies as well as EA's attempt to jump start The Sims Online led to its short-lived run and eventual termination.

The game can again be played today thanks to the four-year effort of the Earth & Beyond Emulator Project.

(Original note by Prelude)

A Korean MMO that was actually closed in EU/US on November 10, 2008 due to license expiring but relaunched on January 9, 2009. The game is a mixture of scifi and fantasy and PvP plays a major part.

Launch: Feb. 15th, 2007
Peak: unknown, but very limited community
D.O.D.: Apr. 10th, 2008

Cyan Worlds, after developing the hits 'Myst' and 'Riven', originally wanted to make their third release 'Myst Online', a multiplayer-only game, but its publisher, Ubisoft, insisted on making it a single-player experience. That title was released in 2003 as Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. It was supposed to have a multiplayer component called Uru Live but it was suspended entirely. A few years later, Cyan Worlds announced they would launch Uru Live on GameTap servers, but due to corporate concerns over the dying adventure genre, GameTap announced it would terminate the service after only one short year. Cyan Worlds has recently released the code for Uru Live as Open Source, hoping the community of Myst fanatics will revive it.

(Description by Prelude)

An early title from 1998 that has continued living as Underlight: Shades of Truth. The game lacked any NPCs and was focused on character development and interaction.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underlight

The closing of the game was announced in August 2010 after a week-long server outage. End of the world followed in September.

One of the earliest console MMOs that didn't manage to last as long as the rest of it's family but still ran for a respectable 9 years. Shut down at midnight on the 29th of March 2012 after the players together with the dev team had unsuccesfully tried to stop a dragon invasion.

EverQuest Online Adventures slays it's final dragon