On Friday, September 3, instead of announcing the definite dates for its beta, the developers of Dragon Empires for Codemasters made another announcement.

Technical difficulties had been weighed and after deliberation it was decided that further development of DE would be halted. It was a sad turn of events for the community, which had eagerly been looking forward to the title. It was also sad news for the massively multiplayer game community in general, which has seen several titles – including Mythica and Ultima X Odyssey – cancelled already this season, and one title (Warhammer Online) put on hiatus.

Gary Dunn, producer of the title, posted a message on the official Dragon Empires Web site, which stated: “We were experiencing unexpected obstacles with the server code, in particular our ability to serve clients at a scale which would have permitted us to launch the game as an MMO. The resolution of these issues was fundamental to the success of the project and ultimate release of the game. Due to the delays, a detailed analysis and review of the game was undertaken over the period of approximately six weeks in which a detailed study of the viability of the project was undertaken.”

GameZone was privileged to speak with Ed Relf, Marketing Brand Manager at Codemasters, who was asked to shed a little more light on the decision to close production on Dragon Empires.