Mythic's first free-to-play game is closing down

Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes, the first free-to-play title from Mythic Entertainment that eased the EA-owned studio into the space, will shut down next month due to financial issues. The game was revealed at Gamescom in 2011, and Mythic said at the time that building a brand new Warhammer Online game for the free-to-play market was preferable to making one of its older MMOs free-to-play. However, a year after the game launched as a beta, producer James Casey has confirmed that its servers will close down on March 29. "The free-to-play battle arena version of Warhammer Online was a grand experiment," he said. "We were able to test new server technology, learn more about the free-to-play market, and engage in endless quick, down and dirty, three-way battles any time of day or night." He added, "Unfortunately, the project could not meet its financial goals to be sustained."