We hate to see it happen – Big Huge Games and 38 Studios, the teams behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, have officially shut down as of yesterday. The games they had poured all of their time, effort, and resources into are now in great danger of disappearing forever. That includes an eye-popping fantasy MMO, codenamed Project Copernicus and set in the Amalur universe, which looks to have been well on its way to completion.

But the story doesn’t have to end this way – some games, and the companies that make them, have been saved from the brink before. EA revived Double Fine’s Brütal Legend after Activision kicked it to the curb, Perfect World absorbed Cryptic Studios, and Crytek revived Free Radical of TimeSplitters fame. Bigger corporations can afford to snatch up talented workers, popular IPs, and already-in-progress games; let’s hope the following companies are willing to take a chance on bringing the 38 Studios developers on board. The following screens are all from Copernicus, but you'd be surprised at how fitting they look to some publisher's most notable titles.

Square Enix has had it a bit rough with MMOs in the past. After the cult success of Final Fantasy XII, they failed to recapture their audience with Final Fantasy XIV. Judging from their willingness to publish European medieval fantasy games like Dungeon Siege III and the caped crusader’s Batman: Arkham Asylum, Square Enix is actively trying to go western with their stable of IPs.

Project Copernicus’ stylized visuals would be the best of both worlds for Square Enix – the colorful visuals and cartoony style would please Eastern and Western sensibilities alike, and it already has the built-in Amalur fanbase. They’re also no strangers to taking a chance on lesser-known IPs, having published the cult-status strategy MMO Wakfu. Copernicus could be the perfect project for Square Enix to wash the bitter aftertaste of FF XIV from their fans’ mouths.

Electronic Arts has the sci-fi MMO division cleared with Star Wars: The Old Republic; having a complementary medieval MMO might compel more people to start using Origin (for games without “Battle” or “Field” in their name). It’s clear that they’re willing to fund fresh IPs on an MMO-scale budget, given that they’re backing Funcom’s The Secret World. It would certainly be refreshing to see EA give some love to a fantasy franchise that doesn’t take place in the Warhammer or Dragon Age worlds. And oh yeah - EA already published Kingdoms of Amalur, so they're no strangers to the franchise.

It’s not a question of “if” EA could fund Copernicus – more of “would they be willing to.” If they took a liking to 38 Studios, it could be a merger match made in heaven – just look at the success of DICE and BioWare becoming subsidiaries of EA. Plus, breathing life into a dying company might do wonders to combat the “worst company in America” nonsense that people seem to be eating up.

SOE already has quite a few MMOs under its belt - but between PlanetSide 2, DC Universe Online, and the kid-friendly Free Realms, their “hardcore medieval fantasy” department seems to be drying up. EverQuest II and its ancient predecessor are coming on in years, and the brand name isn’t very relevant these days. The same goes for Vanguard, which was stuck in limbo for so long that we had forgotten it’s been around since 2007.

What they need is an IP that combines the light-hearted visuals of Free Realms with the adult themes and swords-and-sorcery skirmishes of EverQuest. Copernicus fits the bill nicely – if it plays anything like Kingdoms of Amalur, then the combat will be full of violent hacking, slashing, and spell-casting.

This MMO publisher was once solely focused on games that would appeal to the Chinese market. A lot’s changed since then – they’re aggressively pushing to grab the attention of Western gamers. Moves like buying up Cryptic (who, like 38 Studios, was already early in development on an MMO set in the Neverwinter universe) show that they're willing to make an investment in an already-established game studio, and to save a company that wasn't all that profitable. Like SOE, they could use a medieval fantasy game in their lineup - one that doesn’t have such an anime-inspired art style.

They’ve already had great success with making a name for themselves in the free-to-play genre; perhaps Perfect World could use their micro-transaction methods to make Copernicus an affordable endeavor for both player and publisher. With the huge payoff they gained from backing Runic Games, the makers of Torchlight, Perfect World might be ready to foster another studio that’s adrift in these tough times.

This is somewhat of a dark horse candidate, but Namco Bandai has been surprising us as of late with the games they’re willing to publish. Though it's origins lie in deeply-Japanese series like Tales of the World and .hack//G.U., it's making a push to appealing to western gamers with gambles like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (quite literal there) and Dark Souls. Since Dark Souls hit the jackpot with masochists the world over, we reckon that Namco Bandai would be that much more willing to take a chance on a lesser-known franchise.

It’s also clear that Namco Bandai listen and react accordingly to player feedback; without them listen to the clamoring in forums and comments, we might never have seen Dark Souls make its way to the PC. If players keep asking for the Copernicus MMO, Namco Bandai could very well do whatever’s in their power to make those fans happy. They might not have the money to single-handedly publish it, but perhaps they'd be able to get the game most of the way there before partnering up with another company.

Though they might not have been around for as long as these other publishers, Trion’s had great success with the MMO genre thus far. Rift is doing well for itself, having garnered over $100 million, and the upcoming Syfy tie-in MMO, Defiance, looks to be shaping up nicely. Trion seems determined to grow as fast as possible, and ushering in the return of Project Copernicus could be yet another shot at proving how quickly the company can turn a solid product around.

It wouldn’t make sense to pit Rift and Copernicus against one another, but by the time Copernicus could realistically be completed, Rift will be around four or five years old. We think it would make sense for Trion to have Rift go free-to-play eventually, so that the spotlight could be on a resurrected Copernicus in all its finished glory. Since Trion is comprised of MMO vets, they'd no doubt take any lessons learned from making Rift and apply them to Copernicus as well.

Ubisoft has always been this close to joining the upper echelons of the publishing world; with a few more big franchises on their side, they could sit alongside EA and Blizzard Activision as the publishing royalty of the gaming world. Only, there’s one problem – EA has Star Wars: The Old Republic (and Warhammer Online [and The Secret World]), and Blizzard Activision has World of Warcraft. What MMO does Ubisoft have to its name?

Taking on Project Copernicus would fill the void in Ubisoft’s genre lineup, and if the game succeeds, it would propel them to join the top three biggies of publishing. From what we’ve seen of the settings in Kingdoms of Amalur, the lore and combat-centric gameplay are different enough from Heroes of Might and Magic that the two fantasy franchises wouldn’t have to compete.

Yes, we all groan collectively when we see game projects on the milked-to-death Kickstarter – but Project Copernicus might be one cause that the gaming community can get behind, judging from how vehemently they funded indie darling Double Fine in their time of need. Funding an MMO through Kickstarter isn’t unheard of, either – projects like Pathfinder Online have already hit their goals based on customer confidence alone, and Embers of Caerus is nearing completion with almost a month to go.

Mind you, this wouldn’t be a full funding on the project, servers and all – more like a showing of good faith from hopeful players, so that work on Copernicus could get rolling again. If enough people show interest in the project, larger companies are bound to take notice and front the rest of the bill.

We’d hate to see Project Copernicus vanish from the face of MMO-kind – from what we’ve seen of the game’s environments, we’re itching to get a more in-depth look at the denizens that populate the world of Amalur. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that one of these companies (or a wildcard from out of the blue) snatches up the 38 Studios team, so they can continue their work on the visually-compelling game.

Want more speculation on medieval fantasy franchises? Check out what we want to see from Fable 4 and what we want from the Elder Scrolls MMO.