China's Changyou reviving once-shuttered MMO Shadowbane

It's been nearly three years since Ubisoft shut down the Wolpack Studios-created MMO Shadowbane, but Chinese game developer and operator Changyou wants to bring back the hardcore fantasy game with a new version built for Asian markets. China-focused game site 178.com reports that Changyou has acquired the intellectual property rights and source code to the Shadowbane name and universe, and is using these resources to create a new title dubbed World of Shadowbane. Changyou has released few details regarding the game itself, but online game blog MMO Culture reports that it has been working on this new Shadowbane title for roughly a year. The original Shadowbane launched in 2003, and was praised for its approach to player-vs-player combat. In 2006, however, Ubisoft chose to shut down developer Wolfpack Studios, and a number of studio veterans formed Stray Bullet Games to maintain the game until its eventual closure a few years later. Ubisoft originally planned to shut the game down in May 2009, but fans responded with a number of petitions and online movements looking to keep the game online. In the end, Ubisoft pushed the date back one month, and Shadowbane's servers closed for good on July 1, 2009.