The 1,000-Player Battle Royale Game Has Been Canceled

The 1,000-player PC battle royale game, Mavericks: Proving Grounds, has been canceled. Developer Automaton Games is scuttling the project due to "insufficient funding," while the studio overall appears to be closing up shop.

The developer confirmed the news in a post on its website. "Please be advised that due to insufficient funding, the development of the Mavericks: Proving Grounds game has now ceased."

Automaton Games, which is based in the UK, has become insolvent, and insolvency practitioners Paul Appleton and Paul Cooper have been brought in to wind things down and close up the studio.

It's an out-of-nowhere update for Marvericks. Just last week, the developers announced that the game reached the Alpha stage of development--which is a major milestone for any game. Marvericks was playable at E3 2019 back in June.

Marvericks used the cloud-based SpatialOS tools that allowed the team to make massive worlds that could accommodate 1,000 players on a map. A public beta was planned for November.

One of Automaton's other games, the asymmetrical first-person multiplayer horror game Deceit, may still see the light of day despite the studio going into administration. The administrators said they are currently working on a licensing deal for the game, presumably with a different company. The free-to-play games remains available on Steam, where it has mostly positive reviews, and the joint administrators said "there will be no change in the live operation and provision of this game."