MMO Lineage shuts down in the West

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 12 May, 2011

"No longer financially viable."

NCsoft has decided to shut down medieval fantasy MMO Lineage in western markets.

The long-running online role-playing game has been active since 1998.

"Unfortunately, after more than 10 years, the original Lineage franchise is no longer financially viable in the West," NCsoft explained in an update on its website." All North American servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently on 29th June.

No new accounts can be created, but NCsoft has reactivated all existing accounts and made the game free to play.

The MMO publisher promised to refund any unused game time, and announced plans to offer players the chance to try other NCsoft games for free "to express our gratitude for your years of loyalty to Lineage".

Events are planned for the next two months. "We want to give you every opportunity to make all of your remaining Lineage dreams come true," the developer said. "We hope that everyone will stick around to have fun with the game you love in the time we have left."

NCsoft launched Lineage II, a prequel set 150 years before Lineage, in 2003. It is most popular in Asia, where more than 14 million users are said to have played.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (6) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • levitate #1 1 year ago

    If NCSoft can keep a game like "Lineage" alive for 13 years then I think today's MMOs will probably outlive the human race.

  • Kayin #2 1 year ago

    Aw, this kind of news always upsets me just a bit - and I've never even played Lineage. Heard it was too much of a grindfest, but hey - some people enjoy that style of game.

    Still, NCSoft have plenty of alternate franchises and it's not like they're shutting down the Asian servers.

    I was about to lambast them for their lack of speed in getting Vindictus out over here, but, uh, that's Nexon. Whoops.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #3 1 year ago

    Too many MMOs around, and too many coming out to invest in. Perhaps they should look at a single player game.

    Love the art for the Lineage games, though.

  • Nephirion #4 1 year ago

    I think western gamers mostly find grinding a turn off, suprised they managed to make it this long tbh

  • orangpelupa #5 1 year ago

    hmm need an MMO that play like Eternal Sonata (JRPG) in XBox/PS3.

    can kill boss even when underleveled 20 level. By mastering the battle mechanic.
    so grinding is not a chore (killing boss high level got high exp)

  • jimmys #6 1 year ago

    Most Western gamers do find it a turn off, but you'll find a hell of a lot that don't. These are the players that are extremely loyal, and put a lot of hours in the game. I think Lineage (both 1 and 2) were slightly too extreme on the grinding part, now you'll find it fairly easy as they have added a lot of new features to aid with levelling, but back in C1-C4 it was pretty ridiculous!

    I played Lineage 2 for many years, grinded my way to 80, top gear, top clan, full boss jewel set. They then announced max level of 85, and I gave up hope, but there are many people playing today who find this a challenge and continue to log in for 6hrs a day to do 0.3%