14 DAY TRIAL // Sony Online Entertainment has decided to close down The Matrix Online, the MMO that it has been operating for no less than three years. The game will shut down all the servers on July 31. The news was broken by one of the community liaisons on the official forums.
Daniel Meyers stated that “Now we’ve seen how far the rabbit hole goes and it’s time to wake up from that dream (or go back to sleep, depending how you look at it). On July 31, 2009, we will be jacking out for the last time. It’s a bittersweet moment for everyone involved with the game; as a player or as a developer.”
He added that the game had a good run for the time that it was online, given the fact that other MMOs, like Tabula Rasa from NCsoft and Hellgate: London, managed to come out and also be closed down in the same time frame. The Matrix Online was initially created by Monolith and released in March 2005 and Sony Online Entertainment picked up the title after one year.
The Matrix encountered the challenge of creating a storyline that followed the movie trilogy, while offering an experience as deep as that which Neo experienced in them. The game attempted to tell a story that moved in real time and pitted three sides, Zion, the Machines and the Merovingians against one another. It offered a flexible class system that allowed players to specialize while also experiencing a big amount of content.
Sony is now concentrating on developing other MMOs, like EverQuest, which is the longest running game that it is operating, and the recently released free-to-play Free Realms. Sony Online Entertainment is also set to launch a spy-centered MMO, The Agency, and DC Universe Online, which will come for both the PlayStation 3 and the PC sometime towards the end of the year.