Given that King-owned developer Z2 has announced it was sunsetting legacy titles, the news it's shutting down forthcoming mobile strategy game Rise of Tyrants shouldn't bea huge shock.

However, given it's been in soft launch for over two years, and also features on our Most Anticipated list - it's a really well crafted game - there is still some surprise.

An in-game prompt says that the game's servers will be shut down on 17 October.

The only good news is that on 17 August, IAPs will be shut down and players will be credited with 10 million nanocite, effectively enabling them to unlock everything in the game.

There's more information - and anger from players - on the game's forum.

Change of direction

No reason has been provided why the game won't be formally launched.

But given the move to shut down all of Z2's games apart from the casual Paradise Bay, and news of redundancies, it's now unclear what the Seattle developer's future role will be.

King bought the company in February 2015 for $45 million cash, with an additional $105 million depending on future performance.

Of course, Activision Blizzard's acquisition of King for $5.9 billion in late 2015 is likely to have resulted in a different approach to internal efficiencies.

As for the fate of Singapore-based midcore developer Nonstop, which King acquired in a deal worth up to $100 million in 2014, there's no news either.

Since that acquisition, Nonstop is yet to announce a new game, much less release one.