NCsoft’s take on the MOBA genre announced that they will be closing their doors very soon.

Less than a year after its initial release, NCsoft’s attempt at the MOBA genre, Master X Master, has announced that they will be closing their doors very soon. Master X Master, which main appeal is the incorporation of RPG elements like solo player missions, and as well as employing the top-down shooter setup wherein keyboard directional controls or WASD controls are favored over the traditional mouse movement scheme that most MOBAs incorporate, was first released back in June of this year. Together with its new control scheme and PvE elements, one of Master X Master’s key feature was the incorporation of the Tag System wherein players get to choose 2 characters to play with and is granted to ability to tag or to switch characters even while in combat.

The reason for the shut down, as stated by the developer, revolves around how the game failed to connect with MOBA players, having such a niche community, as it goes up against MOBA juggernauts like Dota 2 and League of Legends. Despite existing and trying to make noise since the start of this year, it was rather obvious that MXM’s presence was rather unfelt by the MOBA community, and not to mention that the release and build-up period also took place during a time when most of the biggest Esports events for MOBAs took place like Dota 2’s The International which took place on August, and League of Legends World Championships during the October to November period.

During the shutdown transition phase, NCsoft will be giving 500,000 X-coins to MXM players in order to unlock the game’s key content such as characters, and as well as issuing refunds for purchases made between Aug 30 and Nov 16.

Master X Master’s servers will be open up until January of next year with the full shut down to take place on January 31, 2018.