Stargate Worlds


Stargate Worlds was to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game video game, but it was put on hold and never released. It was developed by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and would have been published by FireSky for Microsoft Windows. The game's setting was based on the military science fiction series Stargate SG-1. The game was to focus on a premise set around an ancient device called the "Stargate".
In 2006, both CME and MGM announced the release of a video game set in the Stargate Universe. In 2008, FireSky announced its participation in the process of releasing Stargate Worlds. On March 25, 2010, FireSky announced on their website that CME/CMG had entered receivership. As a result, production on the game ceased. The estimated release date was never revealed before cancellation. The license agreement between CME and MGM expired on November 16, 2010, and the servers shut down on January 15, 2011. In 2012 it was reported that development was canceled with at least two investor lawsuits filed against the former chairman and CEO of CME, Gary Whiting, and other former executives.

Development

CME and MGM announced in February 2006 that work had begun on a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. CME released several concept art images from Stargate Worlds in late 2006 along with announcing the use of Unreal Engine 3.0. This was also the first public release on the Stargate Worlds computer-generated art. In November, 2006 CME announced that Stargate Worlds had moved from pre-production to enter the production phase of the games development. To celebrate this, they released new images for the game. The showrunners of Stargate SG-1 have been closely connected with the Stargate Worlds project including co-creator Brad Wright serving as a games creative consultant. Developer Chris Klug in an interview said that creating a game out of the Stargate Universe was easy because of the "breadth of content." Development progress for the game was reported to have slowed down drastically because of the Great Recession of 2007. FireSky had struck a deal with Convergys Corporation, which is a corporation leading in global relationship management. The company would provide the state-of-the-art customer support services for Stargate Worlds, to give the gamers their "best" gaming experience "ever".
In 2009, in an interview with GateWorld, Wright said he had doubts if the game would be released at all. Marketing manager from FireSky announced that the game was still in development, even if people said otherwise. He further stated that they were arranging deals to cover their financial responsibilities and fund the remainder of development of the video game.
Registrations were accepted for a closed beta version, with participants to be drawn randomly from the pool of registrants. Registration was limited to those aged 18 and over.
On February 12, 2010, CME filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with development on hold. The Stargate Worlds project was cancelled.

Setting

Stargate Worlds was based on the popular science fiction show Stargate SG-1. The game was to take place in the earlier seasons of the show, before the Atlantis expedition and before the Ori story arc.
At release, the game would have revolved around the Milky Way Galaxy during the storyline of the ongoing conflict between the Tau'ri and the Goa'uld. Playable races were shown to include Tau'ri, Goa'uld, Jaffa, and the Asgard. The combat was designed to incorporate some elements that are familiar to players of first person shooters, with players using an array of ranged weaponry of both earth and alien origin. Combat would have emphasized tactics to defeat opponents both AI and human controlled. The AI was being designed to provide players with a significant challenge, to the praise of many critics.

Archetypes

The archetypes in the game were designed to fit with the modern ranged-weapon combat system of the game. According to the developers there would be no specific healer class in the game, and all archetypes would have the ability to be a medic, although some archetypes would be better than others at healing and reviving. Specialization within the different archetypes would lead to more flexibility within a group. A robust tech tree would make each archetype that much more customizable and replayable.
The archetypes of Stargate Worlds, would according to the developers be "flexible" in their abilities and usage. Each archetype would have three specialization trees which would define a particular play style over time, although players would be able to mix and match skills from these. No end game instance would need a particular class to be successful.
With the game unreleased, major development was still being worked on with different archetypes that would be a subject to change. Both the scientist and the archaeologist would have specialized in non-combat gameplay with various types of puzzles to solve and gain access to new advances. In addition, there were likely to be quests specifically for those and other archetypes. Each archetype would have its own starting area. In addition to learning how to play the archetype, this starting zone would also give the player a backstory that comes from the first six seasons of Stargate SG-1.
Footage from the game was used in the opening sequence of the 2008 film .
Game footage is shown in the pilot episode of Stargate Universe when Eli enters the Ancient code in the online game Prometheis.