Darwin Project Ceasing Development, Will Keep Servers Up "Through To The End Of The Year"

Charles Darwin didn't personally coined the phrase "survival of the fittest." Nevertheless, it's been associated with him for over a century and applied to all kinds of fields outside of biological evolution. Most notably, video games of an overcrowded genre -- battle royales, for instance -- have been engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival for years now, and the one that bears Darwin's name has just succumbed to natural selection.

Scavengers Studio, makers of Darwin Project, announced yesterday that it has "decided to stop developing new features for the game," with last month's update being the game's last. Despite several updates, a free-to-play transition two years ago, and arrival on the PS4 earlier this year, the game was "unable to sustain itself." As stated by studio founders Simon Darveau and Amélie Lamarche:

"We have assessed all potential solutions and scenarios, but unfortunately, Darwin Project is unable to sustain itself thus forcing us to come to this very difficult decision. We are still very proud to see what had started as a scribble on a piece of paper become a fully released game that has reached millions of players."

Servers for the game will remain online "at least through to the end of the year" so you've still got plenty of time if you want to hop into the game on PC or PS4. It's actually still reasonably populated -- over 200 players on Steam -- so it's not exactly a wasteland where you'll be totally unable to find a match, as often is the case with games that are placed in similar situations.