In early 2021, the medieval MMO Life is Feudal died. However, it is making a return with a new developer. This developer hopes that testers will subscribe for $20 a month.
What kind of game is this? The MMO Life is Feudal was considered a realistic medieval simulation. Your character started naked and without special abilities. Like in a survival game, you had to gather resources to craft tools and weapons or build your own home.
The game featured a high difficulty and a lot of grind:
- It took an incredibly long time to build something up in the game.
- Other players, as well as strong NPC factions, could attack you.
- You lost everything upon death.
- You needed to be very resistant to frustration because everything you built over months could be lost in a battle or raid.
Why did the game die? Due to the heavy grind, the MMO could not retain a large mass of players. Additionally, a few large guilds dominated the game. Nevertheless, even until shutdown, there were still around 800 players online simultaneously at peak times.
The shutdown itself resulted from a lawsuit with a publisher. This publisher was said to have done poor work, which led the developers at Bitbox to self-promote. However, it seems there was still a contract with the publisher.
After the developers declined a renewed deal with the publisher, it is reported that he refused to share the revenues from Life is Feudal.
The financial pressure then reportedly led to the shutdown of the servers – except in China, where the MMO still runs today.
New company brings Life is Feudal back, but it costs
What happens now with the game? Almost 2.5 years after the shutdown, the MMO makes its return. It will be distributed and further developed by the company Long Tail Games, which was founded in October 2022.
Not much is known about the company, but there are some hints about cryptocurrencies on the website. Whether these will be part of the game is unknown.
Also new is the payment model. The MMO was previously Buy2Play, but will now have a subscription model. This costs $20 per month and is therefore significantly higher than the €13 for WoW, FFXIV or ESO+.
Only EVE Online charges a similar price of $19.99/Euro. However, there has already been a lot of criticism. In EVE, costs can be reduced if you pay for several months at once. This is (still) not possible with Life is Feudal.
However, it is curious that you already have to pay for the playtest. Your subscription will be paused between the playtests; however, it will be reactivated when the next test takes place. At release, there will be a wipe that deletes all progress. All players will start anew together.
Otherwise, Long Tail Games stated that the version of Life is Feudal should correspond to the version that was active when the servers were shut down in 2021. In the future, there will be updates based on player feedback and their own analyses.
Life is Feudal is set to be released worldwide, except in China. There, the original developer is still active.
What do you think about the return of Life is Feudal? Have you missed the MMO? And are you willing to pay the expensive subscription costs?
A more positive outlook than Life is Feudal has this game: A new MMORPG makes my dreams come true – Shows the best combat system ever in the trailer.
