State of Decay studio shutting down free-to-play RPG Moonrise

State of Decay developer Undead Labs has announced its RPG Moonrise will shut down at the end of this year.

A post on thestudio’s blogreveals the title is having trouble retaining users in its preview phase on iOS and Steam, and plans have been made for its closure on December 31st.

Undead Labs founder Jeff Strain explained the lack of returning players combined with high server hosting costs have made Moonrise unsustainable. The game is being well received by Steam users; perhaps selling up to par for a game in a different category or genre, but not well enough for a free-to-play multiplayer release.

"For a standalone, offline game that might be fine. But for an online game with significant server hosting costs and an expectation for ongoing development and new content, it can mean a game that not only doesn’t pay for it’s development costs, but might even cost money to operate,” Strain said.

"As you can imagine, that’s not something that makes sense for an independent studio like Undead Labs, nor for that matter would it be a good business decision even for a large publisher."

Strain did add that new updates are still on the way before the scheduled shut down, with forthcoming content including an updated Arena Mode, new dungeons and more.

Moonrise released May 27thon Steam Early Access for Windows PC and Mac. The game is also currently in limited release for iPhone and iPad devices, though the previously announced worldwide iOS and Android release seems in serious doubt.