Carbine Studios, the maker of the free-to-play sci-fi MMO Wildstar, is being shut down. The closure, reported by Kotaku, will also bring about the end of Wildstar itself.

"Today, we are closing Carbine Studios and will begin the process of winding WildStar down to ultimately shutter the game,” Wildstar parent NCsoft said in a statement.

"WildStar players who have spent money within the game will be refunded purchases from July 1, 2018 until the payment system is shut off. We are also in the process of identifying the teams that will be doing the work to bring WildStar to a close. These decisions are very difficult to make and we are in the midst of shifting as many of our teammates as possible into other roles within the organization."

Wildstar launched in 2014 and we liked it a lot, although we also took note of the risks inherent in launching a subscription-based MMOs in a WoW-dominated world. Sure enough, it went free to play a little over a year later, and then came to Steam a year after that. But its peak player count on Steam was just over 5000, and the average concurrent player count quickly tailed off into triple digits; it hasn't been above 200 since October 2017.

A date for the Wildstar shutdown hasn't been announced.