NCSoft announced last month that they’re closing Carbine Studios and shutting down WildStar. The game goes dark November 28. We’ve been thinking about what to say since the announcement, and we still don’t have clean words for it.
This is an opinion piece. The facts are factual. The feelings are ours.
What Happened
- September 2018: NCSoft announced Carbine Studios is closing; WildStar will shut down permanently
- November 28, 2018: WildStar goes offline
- NCSoft cited the failure of unannounced projects that Carbine was developing as the primary reason for the closure
- WildStar launched in 2014, went free-to-play in 2015, and maintained a dedicated community through its final years
We Cover Guild Wars 2. Why Are We Writing About This?
Because NCSoft is ArenaNet’s parent company.
Because WildStar had a community that loved it, and that community is about to lose their game.
Because this has happened before - NCSoft shut down City of Heroes in 2012, and years later, that wound is still talked about in certain corners of MMO history - and at some point, you have to look at a pattern and acknowledge what it is.
And because we think it’s worth saying directly: the fear some GW2 players are feeling right now, the “could this happen to us?” question running in the background of every conversation about this - that fear is not irrational. We’re not going to pretend it is.
What WildStar Was
WildStar was a game with a genuinely distinctive identity. The art style - exaggerated, cartoon-bright, built around a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid setting - was immediately recognizable. The housing system was the most flexible and creatively rich in the MMO space when it launched. The combat had a telegraphing system that players either loved or found exhausting, but was technically ambitious.
It was also built around hardcore raiding in a way that limited its audience from day one. The 40-person raids required coordination that most player groups couldn’t sustain. The game went free-to-play in 2015 trying to broaden that audience. It never quite found the size it needed.
None of that makes the closure easier for the people who were there.
The WildStar community cared. They organized. They advocated. They made the argument that the game was worth saving. NCSoft made a business decision, and the argument didn’t change the outcome. That’s the part that’s hard to hold, because it’s true of every game that closes, and it will be true of every game that closes in the future.
The NCSoft Question
There’s a version of this article that reassures you Guild Wars 2 is safe, that the games are too different, that ArenaNet is in a different position than Carbine, and that you don’t need to worry.
That version isn’t honest.
Guild Wars 2 is in a different position than WildStar. It’s a broader game, with a more sustainable design philosophy, with Living World as an ongoing revenue engine that keeps the game alive between box sales. The comparison isn’t apples-to-apples.
But NCSoft has a clear record of decisions when games stop performing at the level the parent company requires. City of Heroes in 2012. WildStar in 2018. The timeline is visible. The company is not sentimental about what it closes.
What protects GW2 isn’t sentiment either. It’s performance. As long as the game performs - as long as Living World drives engagement, as long as gem purchases are healthy, as long as the game attracts and retains players - the business case for GW2 holds.
The way to keep Guild Wars 2 safe is to keep playing it. That’s not cynicism. That’s the reality of how live service games work.
What We Lose When We Lose a Game
There’s a grief specific to losing a live game that doesn’t have a great vocabulary yet.
It’s not like losing a TV show. A show ends and the episodes stay. You can rewatch them. The ending is preserved. When an MMO closes, the world that existed in it - the characters players built, the places they found meaningful, the communities that formed around specific experiences - that disappears. You can’t go back. The Wayback Machine doesn’t have a copy of your housing plot.
The WildStar community is losing things that don’t exist in any form once November 28 passes. Screenshots survive. Stories survive. But the place those stories happened - gone.
We’ve been playing GW2 since 2012. Exitializ started in 2012. We’ve watched this game accumulate layers that matter to us in ways that are genuinely hard to articulate. If this site is still running in fifteen years, it’ll be because GW2 gave us something worth showing up for.
We take that for granted sometimes. We shouldn’t.
The Practical Upshot
What does the WildStar closure actually mean for GW2 players? A few things worth thinking about:
NCSoft’s western operations are under scrutiny. The decision to close Carbine is part of a broader pattern of NCSoft re-examining its investments in western studios. ArenaNet is NCSoft’s most successful western property by a significant margin. That position is real protection - but it’s performance-dependent, not guaranteed.
The “this is fine” impulse is worth resisting. When something uncomfortable happens to a neighboring game, the first move is usually to explain why it’s different and doesn’t apply. Sometimes that’s accurate analysis. Sometimes it’s motivated reasoning. The honest version is: the situation isn’t directly comparable, AND the pattern is real, AND the best thing GW2 players can do is support the game they love.
Community matters more than players usually think. WildStar had a dedicated community that advocated for the game’s continued existence. It wasn’t enough. But the community’s presence, the discussion, the visibility - that’s part of what makes a game worth keeping around to a publisher. Being visible as a player counts.
Who Should Pay Attention
GW2 players who’ve been phoning it in: You’ve been meaning to come back. You’ve been meaning to buy the expansion. You’ve been meaning to do that story arc you never finished. WildStar is a reminder that “later” is a gamble. Play the game now.
Former WildStar players looking for a new home: Guild Wars 2 has a free-to-play base game. No subscription. A community that’s genuinely welcoming of new players. If you’re grieving a game and looking for somewhere to land, Exitializ’s guild has an open door.
Everyone who loves any live game: This applies to all of us. The game you’re playing right now is not permanent. That’s not a reason to stop - it’s a reason to be present.
What to Watch For
- ArenaNet’s Q3 financial results - NCSoft publishes quarterly figures that include ArenaNet’s performance. The community reads these closely, and the numbers will tell a more useful story than speculation.
- Season 4 Episode 5 - the content pipeline keeps moving. A healthy release cadence is the best signal ArenaNet can send about GW2’s trajectory.
- November 28 - if you want to pay respects to WildStar, that’s the date. It’s a weird thing to mark, but the communities that loved these games deserve acknowledgment.
WildStar made people happy. It gave them a place to go and things to care about and people to care about them alongside. It did what games are supposed to do. And now it’s ending.
We hope the people who loved it find somewhere new to love. And we hope we never have to write this article about Guild Wars 2.
Tags: NCSoft, WildStar, Carbine Studios, Opinion, Live Service, Industry, GW2 Community