The Matrix Online
Following the release of Matrix Revolutions, Sony and Monolith Productions teamed up for The Matrix Online, a canonical continuation of The Matrix story set in an MMORPG. Though The Matrix had found some success on consoles, the Wachowskis' virtual world seemed like a perfect concept for an MMO.
Though it only lasted four years–from 2005 to 2009–The Matrix Online allowed subscribers to live out their Neo fantasies as red-pillers awoken from the Matrix's control. Once "freed," players could explore Mega City to find like-minded revolutionaries to take on the computer system holding humanity in check. Unless, that is, they decided to side with the Machines, though that was an option that seemed counterintuitive to living in the Matrix. Along with more traditional MMO battle elements, the film franchise's signature bullet time combat was included too, which worked surprisingly well given it was based on accuracy stats and luck rolls.
After the servers were closed in 2009 due to drastically low subscriber numbers, Sony crafted a memory book fans could visit to reflect on their time in the Matrix. That, too, has since been pulled down, but exists as an archive on an unofficial Matrix Online fansite.
Plants vs. Zombies Adventures
Released exclusively on Facebook in May 2013, Plants vs. Zombies Adventures was technically the first sequel to the classic tower-defense game from PopCap and EA. Plants vs. Zombies 2 came out later that same year for mobile devices, but for a few months, Plants vs. Zombies Adventures was the best way to enjoy fending off zombie hordes for franchise fans on Facebook.
Adventures followed the original game's concept, with players having an arsenal of plants to fend off zombie attacks. However, instead of defending a single homestead, Adventures' maps were much more elaborate, and took place all over the town where players lived. Growing plants at a home base to then take on these escapades was a necessary tactic, and there was even an asynchronous PvP mode where players could earn more in-game currencies to further develop their own home gardens.
Plants vs. Zombies Adventures barely lasted more than a year, however, with EA shuttering the service in November 2014. At least when the game was on its way out, PopCap gave each player 100,000 gems–the premium currency–so they could go wild in the game's waning moments.
Marvel Heroes
What if we told you one of the creators of Diablo was tapped to develop an online action role-playing game steeped in Diablo style but set in the Marvel Universe? Would that be something you might be interested in? Good news: that game, Marvel Heroes, definitely happened. Now for the bad news: Marvel Heroes closed down forever on December 31, 2017.
Back in 2009, Gazillion Entertainment entered into a development deal with Marvel Comics. As part of that agreement, Gazillion reworked Marvel Universe, a long in-development MMORPG, into 2013's Marvel Heroes, an isometric action RPG in the vein of Blizzard's iconic fantasy game. That connection came largely from Gazillion's president David Brevik, who was one of the co-founders of Blizzard North. Rather than having players create a custom character to fit into the Marvel world, Marvel Heroes allowed players to go on adventures as more than 60 different legendary Marvel characters.
Despite finally getting a console port in the summer of 2017, Marvel Heroes' time on the virtual plane was short. Not long after launching on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Disney and Marvel announced Marvel Heroes would be closing forever, giving players only the briefest of glimpses into a world where they could save the world as their favorite super-people.
City of Heroes
Today there are licensed comic book video games available readily on a number of devices, but that wasn't always the case. In 2004, NCSoft's City of Heroes gave many wannabe superheroes a chance to don tights and capes to fend off evil online in the fictional Paragon City. In addition to creating and customizing a hero of their own, players could join up with other players to create their own supergroups, like custom-made riffs on the Justice League or Avengers.
After releasing a sequel in 2004 dubbed City of Villains, which let players live out their supervillain fantasies, the two games were merged in 2008, allowing players to wage a massive battle for Paragon's destiny. Updates, known as Issues, were added regularly, and introduced new elements like mystical characters, mission creation tools, and time manipulation. City of Heroes was so successful in the early '00s, it even spawned a comic series, a collectible card game, and several novels. Sadly, that popularity wouldn't last into the next decade.
A free-to-play model was added in the summer of 2011, but even that couldn't help save City of Heroes live for longer than one more year. Despite an outpouring of support and protests from existing players, City of Heroes' adventure ended in 2012.
Star Wars Galaxies
Perhaps no game on this list has more of a controversial relationship with its fanbase than Star Wars Galaxies. Launched in 2003 to fairly positive reviews, it only took two years for Sony Online and Lucasfilm to completely revamp the way Galaxies worked, spurning most of the remaining devoted fans in the process. In spite of that dramatic overhaul just a few years into existence, Galaxies remained a home to numerous hopeful Jedi until it closed in 2011.
Star Wars Galaxies had a lot of great elements going for it that players loved, including the ability to play as nearly a dozen different species across a dozen different planets. Familiar characters like Han Solo and Darth Vader appeared as NPCs, and there were hundreds of references to the greater expanded universe as it existed back in the early aughts. Though Galaxies only allowed ground exploration at the start, even space elements were added in later, giving players a chance to fly ships of varying sizes from planet to planet.
The closing of Star Wars Galaxies was well-covered in the gaming press, with Giant Bomb hosting a lengthy livestream of the game's closing hours. Players gathered around for celebration, goodbyes, and one final battle between the Rebellion and the Empire as the lights went out.
Infinite Crisis
DC Comics' DC Universe Online has been a staple of the comic publisher's video game portfolio since 2011, but in 2014, Warner Bros. tried to get in on MOBA craze with Infinite Crisis. Rather than having players create super-characters of their own like in DCU Online, Infinite Crisis cobbled its roster together from the infinite Earths of the DC Multiverse. That meant you could play as a number of different Batmen (like Nightmare or Gaslight) and Wonder Women (like Atomic and Mecha), with each iteration serving a different role within the game.
A free-to-play game, Infinite Crisis launched in full in early 2015, but wasn't able to keep player interest up, and was forced to shut down just a few months after exiting beta. With more established games like League of Legends continually retaining players, and larger developers like Blizzard entering the MOBA fold around the same time, there just wasn't a lot of room in the market for another competitor that wasn't as critically acclaimed.
It also didn't help matters much that developer Turbine was hit with layoffs for three consecutive years starting in 2014, leaving the team incapable of working on multiple online titles with the amount of support they each needed.
Tabula Rasa
After creating the Ultima series, and allegedly coining the term MMORPG, developer Richard Garriott de Cayeux turned his attention to virtual space, and helped craft Tabula Rasa, a game that took place in a galaxy not so far, far away. The sci-fi MMO blended some traditional role-playing elements with shooting gameplay to deliver an experience quite different from any competitors. Unfortunately, even Tabula Rasa's unique elements weren't enough to keep the player subscriptions coming in.
With a letter to the community, first claimed as written by Garriott de Cayeux himself, NCsoft announced Tabula Rasa would be closing in 2008. Of course, this letter was delivered to the fans while Garriott de Cayeux was in quarantine after returning to Earth from his visit to the International Space Station. Tabula Rasa closed in early 2009, but the saga was far from over as Garriott de Cayeux then sued NCsoft over his termination, which he alleged NCsoft claimed was a resignation rather than a firing.
The litigation lasted for years, with a final judgment coming from an appeals court in 2011. Garriott de Cayeux eventually won a $28 million settlement. Sure, Tabula Rasa was no more–but that settlement can buy a lot of sympathy ice cream.
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