Warframe developer 'hits the pause button' on its hero shooter, The Amazing Eternals

Digital Extremes, the developer behind the massive free-to-play hit Warframe, has announced that it is halting development on its new shooter The Amazing Eternals. First teased back in May and then officially announced in August, The Amazing Eternals was supposed to be a Overwatch-style hero shooter with a collectible card game twist, where players would collect and play cards that fundamentally alter their abilities during a match. Despite how crowded the genre already is, that sounded nifty and I enjoyed what I saw of it at PAX West.

That's all for aught now, as Digital Extremes appears to be canning the project in its current incarnation for the time being. "This decision didn’t come lightly," reads a post on the official forums. "We worked hard to make a game that we are proud to say was shaping up to have great potential. However, we took an honest look at the current gaming landscape and how the game was performing in Closed Beta. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t attracting players fast enough to support a viable matchmaking player base with the current game design direction, which is the lifeblood of this type of game. So, with heavy hearts, we’re taking a step back to reevaluate the design and may revisit our intrepid heroes in the future."

The post goes on to say that no one is being laid off, and the entire development team will now be working on Warframe, which just launched its biggest update ever.

For those of you who purchased early access through the Founders Program, Digital Extremes is offering full refunds over a 72-hour window starting today, and game servers will remain live until just before midnight on November 2. You can log in here to process your refund.

Up until now, we had been giving out beta codes with PC Gamer Club memberships, but with sign ups now closed they are unfortunately no longer usable. We are, however, giving out keys right now for this weekend's Aquanox: Deep Descent closed beta, which looks promising.

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.