On Monday, Robot Entertainment announced that it will be ending support for Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy, and Hero Academy 2 and shutting down all three games effective April 2019.
The announcement came via a blog post on Robot Entertainment's official website. In it, CEO Patrick Hudson wrote,
"Making and supporting a game is a long and challenging journey. Along the way, there are plenty of highs and plenty of lows. The communities who play our games join us on these journeys. We know this decision affects our players as much as it does us. We've kept these games operating at a financial loss for many months. Unfortunately, it's no longer sustainable for us to do so. We must shift our focus to future games and make our investments there."The games will be made unavailable for download in the coming months. Current Orcs Must Die! Unchained and Hero Academy 2 players will receive in-game currencies to help them enjoy their final months. The official shut down will occur on April 8th, 2019. In the meantime, prospective players who wish to start playing either game will have a limited window before the ability to create new accounts is removed.
Though 2012's Hero Academy has been removed from the app store since earlier this year, the closure of Orcs Must Die! Unchained and Hero Academy 2 may come as more of a surprise to fans. Released in April 2017 and January 2018 respectively, both games were follow-ups to critically successful series and received generally favorable reviews upon release. The unfortunate news of their shutdown comes a little less than a year after the Texas-based company announced the layoff of 30 employees. Though the blog post was understandably somber in tone, the studio did express optimism regarding two unannounced projects currently in development. The developer expects to announce more information regarding these projects later this year.
