14 DAY TRIAL // Mythic Entertainment has been recently renamed BioWare Mythic by its owner, Electronic Arts. Mythic was already under BioWare's management after EA’s decision last year to merge the two subsidiaries in one big massively multiplayer online/ role playing game division under the leadership of BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk.
This move also comes with the transition of the European servers from GOA to the developer, as stated in a recent letter to the community by franchise producer Carrie Gouskos. “As you now know, we are working with GOA to transition the European community over to BioWare Mythic (Like the fancy new name? We’re still getting used to it ourselves),” she wrote for the European players. GOA has been the server manager of the European version of WAR since its launch.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is BioWare Mythic’s only release since it has joined EA's ranks in 2006. It has not been a successful game, however, despite starting out just fine in September 2008 with 750,000 strong player base. Unfortunately for the developers, that number went down to 300,000 by February 2009. Since then, the studio has closed 63 servers due to lack of population. For example, there are only six European servers still running, two English, two French and two German. Rumors also stated that EA's infamous 1,500 layoffs affected the company a lot, leaving out no less than one third of the original staff.
It is unclear as of yet what BioWare's role will be in the merger, whether it will help with Warhammer Online or other future projects or whether Mythic will be involved in BioWare's upcoming games. An EA representative stated for VG247 that the two developers would remain separate entities in the MMO/RPG division, at least for the time being. It is working on its own take on the massively multiplayer online role playing genre with Star Wars: The Old Republic. The much-hyped title is set to appear in the spring of 2011 only on the PC.