After a run of just under three years, Trion Worlds recently announced their decision to pull the plug on their turn-based tactics game Atlas Reactor. According to a post on the game’s website, the reason for the shutdown is “that the game can no longer sustain itself.” The post said that servers will remain open until June 28, but that is subject to change.
Atlas Reactor, which was released in the Fall of 2016, is a turn-based PVP strategy game that is currently free-to-play on PC. One of the more unique mechanics of the game is that two teams of four players have an incredibly short span of time, collectively, to decide their character’s actions before everything kicks in on the battlefield. The actions are then divided into phases, allowing players to strategically plan their moves based on what they think their opponents will do.
The Atlas post quotes Mervin Lee Kwai, a former Executive Producer of Atlas Reactor and current Vice President of Development at Gamigo, Trion Worlds’ parent company. He speaks about his fine memories of the game. “Atlas Reactor was a truly innovative game built by a passionate group of highly skilled developers. I was lucky enough to watch our team breathe life into the world of Atlas on a daily basis.” Speaking directly about the decision to shut it all down, Kwai said, “Despite the support of this great group of fans, Atlas Reactor never grew big enough to fund its continued development.”
As of today, all in-game purchasing has been turned off, but the game’s developers state they have come up with new ways to obtain the items that would have normally been for purchase. According to the post, developers also “turned the XP, Flux, and ISO rates up dramatically,” most likely to compensate for the in-game store shutting down as well as to give players one last chance to grind some levels quickly. As an added bonus for their faithful players, Atlas Reactor has one last surprise in store. “For all player[s] who have logged into Atlas at least once between 01/01/2018 – 04/16/2019, we have a small parting gift for you. More information will be sent to the email address that you used to register your Atlas account.”
While it is obvious that the support just wasn’t there for Atlas Reactor, despite it’s small, but dedicated fanbase, it’s never enjoyable to see a game have to shut down. Players who have enjoyed the game in the past still have a couple of months to play before the servers shut down on June 28.