Flagship Studios has reportedly suspended private beta testing for Mythos, shutting down the game's servers and message board — but not before an official explanation was posted on the forums by Flagship co-founder and COO Max Schaefer:
Unlike most games, Mythos has been running with our testing community for almost its whole life. I really feel like we've all done this together. And despite this bump in the road, I think we've succeeded wildly. This is undoubtedly the best game community I've ever seen. This is the best game development team in the world, in both Seattle and San Francisco. The things we've learned here, and with you all, will be with us forever."
The game's official site calls the suspension a "hiatus," but offers no date as to when private beta or further development will resume.
We recently spoke to Flagship Studios, who told us at the time that despite some rough patches after Hellgate: London launched, the studio was fully staffed and dividing its time between maintaining Hellgate and testing Mythos.
But in his statement, Schaefer said:
"PC gaming is changing, and I believe we've had a sneak preview with Mythos. With any luck, this will not be a long hiatus, and Mythos will be back. But even if it's not, and even if we all move on, we've taken a lot of important steps forward. Game development is in many ways a continuum, and we all build on what came before. I know neither [lead designer Travis Baldree], the great Mythos dev team, nor myself are planning on doing anything but make games into the future. So no matter what, we'll pick up where we left off, and you'll be hearing from us shortly. We may not be the best business people on the planet, but we know how to make games."
We've contacted Flagship for further details and will update as we receive them.