After a near 20-year run, the free-to-play browser game Urban Dead is shutting down on March 14.
Creator Kevan Davis’ statement pointed fingers at the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) of 2023. Under the law, all social and video game websites are “more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms,” according to its website. “Platforms will be required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise.”
The kind of moderation is tough on developers with minimal or no resources to comply, like Davis. He admitted that it “doesn’t look feasible” for Urban Dead to follow the OSA’s rules or face “the possibility of heavy corporate-sized fines.”
“No grand finale. No final catastrophe. No helicopter evac. Make your peace or your final stand in whichever part of Malton you called home, and the game will be switched off at noon UTC on 14 March,” he wrote.
Urban Dead is a text-based MMO wherein players begin as either a survivor or zombie in a quarantined region in the fictional city of Malton. Upon death, survivors are made into zombies, while the slain undead can be “revivified” into a living person.
The game’s sudden end is a notable blow to the browser and free-to-play sectors of the game industry, and another addition to the ever-growing tomb of multiplayer games taken offline.
Davis said that if the game ever gets revived or spun off “in any way in the future,” he would directly confirm it on the game’s website.