Published , by Brittany Vincent
Published , by Brittany Vincent
The Battle Royale genre continues to be something of an impenetrable one for newcomers, as Mavericks: Proving Grounds has been canceled.
Originally announced back in 2017, the 1000-player Battle Royale is no longer in development, and UK studio Automaton Games has now been closed in addition to the game being canceled.
"Paul Cooper and Paul Appleton were appointed joint administrators of Automaton Games Limited on 30th July 2019," a statement on the studio's website read. "Please be advised that due to insufficient funding, the development of the Mavericks: Proving Grounds game has now ceased." The studio's other game, Deceit, will be unaffected, or that's the goal, anyway.
"The joint administrators are in the process of licensing the Deceit game so there will be no change in the live operation and provision of this game."
Early looks at the game hadn't yet gotten to the point the 1,000-player game was supposed to be at, and in fact only featured about 100 players for many who had tried it early. Unfortunately, in a landscape where Fortnite is ruling with an iron fist, it just makes little sense in the first place to try and horn in on the same territory, especially for smaller studios. And while the game looked promising for those into the idea of these mass-scale shootouts, unfortunately now we'll never get to know what could have been.
Previously, a public beta was planned for November, but that's obviously no longer the case. At the time of this writing, the game's public-facing website is still up and running. Pour one out for another canceled game, everyone, that looked like it had so much potential.