WildStar’s China launch canceled, Carbine Studios hit with layoffs

Still free-to-play

It’s been a little over half a year since WildStar went free-to-play, but developer Carbine Studios is still going through a tough period. They’ve just announced a number of layoffs, and accompanying them is the decision to cancel the launch of the game in China — a country that contributes huge MMO numbers.

The studio shared the news on their forums, noting:

Earlier this morning, Carbine Studios completed a reorganization of its operating structure. Moving forward, the studio will focus on operating and updating WildStar as a live game in the US and Europe. As part of this change, the studio has canceled its plans to bring WildStar to China. Unfortunately, as a result of these changes, we’ve had to reduce staff. These cuts are directly tied to WildStar’s evolution from a product in development to a live title, to the cancelation of work to bring WildStar to China, and to the overall performance of WildStar since launch in 2014.

Sad news for sure. WildStar is a great game with a killer art style, but it struggled to keep its hardcore fans satisfied very early on, likely bleeding subscribers.

A  Note from Carbine [WildStar Forums]