Durango: Wild Lands launched globally last May, with an Eastern release occurring approximately a year before that. The game offered a unique survival experience that has never been seen on mobile before. Players got to explore a whole new world filled with dinosaurs and it was magnificent. Unfortunately, sometimes magnificent is not enough as What! Studios just announced that Durango: Wild Lands will be shutting down for good.
Durango: Wild Lands had a problematic start, not because of the gameplay, but due to technical problems. The game was in development for six years, and when it finally came out, the response was so massive that the servers were overloaded almost instantly. It took several days of maintenance for the game to operate with some stability. Despite that, however, players continued to download the game and enjoy everything it had to offer.
It seems like the one thing players didn’t enjoy were the in-app purchases because revenue remained low despite the game’s popularity. In fact, Durango: Wild Lands was not even making 50 cents per user, which isn’t good considering the amount it takes to keep an open world running.
In the official Facebook post coming from Eunseok Yi, Executive Producer of What! Studio, and Seungmyeong Yang, Producer of Durango: Wild Lands, they thanked the players for choosing to be part of the game’s family. They also apologized for putting an end to the journey.
A few more updates will be added to the game before it shuts down. This includes the conclusion to the game’s main story, a new Combat Island, and the Instrument system. The official Facebook post also mentioned they are trying to find a way for players to be able to keep their private islands even after the game officially shuts down.
In-app purchases were officially removed from the game last October 16. The servers of Durango: Wild Lands will officially shut down on December 18. It will not longer be available for download after the said date and the official forum will also be closed.