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Fantastic Pixel Castle, the indie studio from former League of Legends and World of Warcraft lead Greg Street, is closing.
Street, who was previously World of Warcraft's lead systems designer, and then later lead gameplay designer on League of Legends and executive producer on Riot Games' elusive MMO, predicted last month that Fantastic Pixel Castle would "likely close" if it couldn't find a publisher for its flagship fantasy MMO, revealed in 2023 and codenamed Ghost. Well, unfortunately, Street's concerns have proven to be valid, as the MMO veteran announced on LinkedIn that "Fantastic Pixel Castle will close its doors on Nov 17."
Street appeared to throw out a Hail Mary to potential investors who could still fund Ghost if enough of the studio sticks around despite the planned closure.
"While there is still a chance we can secure funding after that date, it will depend on how much of the team remains," he said. "While we'd love to make our game, our first priority is to help our developers find employment, whether that's at indie studio Fantastic Pixel Castle 2.0, or at many of the other fine (and hopefully stable) game and tech companies out there."
Fantastic Pixel Castle lost funding from NetEase last month, likely the catalyst to its closure following a weeks-long search for a new investor. Still, Street remained open to the possibility of a new backer in his announcement.
"To the literally dozens of people who reached out trying to help us raise capital, or through introductions to people who could, you humble me. There is still a chance one of them works out, and it really only takes one," he wrote.
This news follows closely on the heels of mass layoffs at Amazon and the end of new development on Amazon Games' MMO New World. In other words, it's been a rough few days for MMO fans, although there's still a small chance Ghost is funded before the studio shutdown.
At least you can still access everything on our list of the best MMOs to play in 2025.
