Another SpatialOS game's been canned, making it the third this year Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Another SpatialOS game's been canned, making it the third this year Lazarus' cancellation follows Mavericks: Proving Grounds and Worlds Adrift. News by Emma Kent Contributor Updated on 12 Aug 2019 8 comments Lightning-fast action, a "shared and persistent" open world, exciting tech and thousands of players. These were the things promised by Lazarus, an ambitious MMO shooter by indie developer Spilt Milk Studios - and a finished project we'll unfortunately never see. After three years in open alpha, Spilt Milk today announced that Lazarus' development has been cancelled - making it the third game using Improbale's SpatialOS technology to bite the dust this year. The cited reason? Funding, as ever. "Lazarus is a brilliant game and the people who play it with us are amazing, but it did not reach a point during its alpha that would give us the confidence that it would launch successfully," Spilt Milk explained in its Steam post. "We spent months and years with a tiny team, exploring the challenges and opportunities of a new design space - persistence, scale, the kinds of things that the cloud can offer - and in the process providing feedback to help our technology partner Improbable improve their tech as well as making Lazarus brilliant fun, and we're immensely proud of what we achieved. "Running a game has many elements - things like server costs and software licenses, the cost of maintaining, running and updating the game as it grows with new features and content, and the licensing of all of the services we use to run things like player accounts and whatnot. "Put simply, if we were to launch Lazarus, the cost of maintaining and expanding the game as we marketed it to more players and worked on our monetisation would put a dangerous financial strain on an independent games studio like ours." Despite the cancellation of Lazarus, Spilt Milk is apparently "alive and well" and will continue to work on other projects. Players hoping to make the most of Lazarus will have until 12th September to do so, at which point the game's servers "will be taken down forever, and a tear will be shed". The game's cancellation also raises questions about the viability of SpatialOS: a cloud platform by Improbable that allows a single world to be split across multiple dedicated servers at once, thus allowing for more complex features. So far this year we've seen both Worlds Adrift and "1000-player" battle royale Mavericks: Proving Grounds cancelled, and in 2017 space survival sim Ion similarly got canned. Other games using SpatialOS are still in development, such as Midwinter Entertainment's shooter Scavengers and the mysterious Project C. Fingers crossed these will be able to avoid the fate of their predecessors. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More News Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 61 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 11 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Sennheiser's legendary HD 599 open-back headphones are just £70 at Amazon in the Prime Early Access Sale Comfortable with neutral sound and a wide sound stage. Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. 1 Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 61 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store