We’re sorry to report this afternoon that sci-fi MMORPG Dual Universe is sunsetting in August – sort of.

“Today, we are announcing the closure of the Dual Universe MMO server,” Novaquark announced on Discord today. “It is with a heavy heart from all of us here on the Dual Universe team and at Novaquark to tell you that the Dual Universe MMO server will be sunsetting on Wednesday, August 27th, 2025 at 14:00 UTC. We can’t thank all of you enough for supporting Dual Universe’s journey throughout this time.”

We’re guessing a lot of our readers will be surprised to find out Dual Universe was still alive, so a little backstory is in order. The MMORPG was Kickstarted all the way back in 2016, pulling in $630,000, and it was originally a closely watched and exciting sandbox with all the trappings – including a simulation of 30,000 players all on the same planet during the alpha. But DU was bogged down in delays, and then in 2021, the game was apparently taken over by a wealthy metaverse financier following the apparent ousting of studio Novaquark’s founder and the key dev behind the game. By the time DU made it to launch in 2022, it couldn’t even hit 1000 concurrent, and it’s dwindled ever since.

But we said it’s only “sort of” sunsetting in the intro there, and that’s because of the system Novaquark developed over the last year called myDU – basically, private server functionality. Players will still be able to play the standalone, player-hosted-server version of the game… at least if they’re willing to pay the $35 for it. Novaquark also suggests that it’s “in the process of exploring the possibility to move Dual Universe, both client and server, to an open source license.”

“This is not easy to do on the technical side, but in order to prepare for a public build, there is also the legal side as Dual Universe integrates several custom proprietary technologies from third parties. Nevertheless, we want to start opening a dialog with you, hear your opinion and discuss how we could perhaps make this idea a reality.”

The devs do remind players to export their blueprints from the MMO for use in myDU, and you can get an Xsolla refund for subs after the sunset. “End of the World” events are also apparently on deck, but we have no details yet.

It’s a downgrade for an MMO that was once supposed to hold many thousands of players in the same map, but it’s better than nothing and much more than most MMOs ever get. Our condolences to the remaining players – and of course to the Kickstarter backers who are out $630,000.