8Realms was a short lived MMO developed by Jagex Games Studio. It was browser based where players could oversee building an empire. The closed beta was released on May 5th, 2011.
Shutdown[ | ]
It shut down just a year after release due to lacklustre sales. They directed players to their other game, "War of Legends" with the following statement.
"We have decided to withdraw 8Realms from the market on the 1st of July for a number of reasons, chief amongst those was to focus sharply on our three priorities for this year namely continuing to grow RuneScape, developing a great Transformers MMO and the launch of another game that is currently a closely guarded secret.
I know that this news will be disappointing to many of you and I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has taken part in the 8Realms beta. We have really valued your feedback and strong support and to show our appreciation we will be gifting everyone that has previously bought Gems with double the amount in WoL-cash!
Whilst there is clearly still time for you to finish your current journey through the ages one final time, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce another tactical strategy game in the Jagex portfolio. If you enjoyed 8Realms then I think you'll probably love War of Legends, a strategy game based on ancient mythology where players take the role of a Feudal Lord in charge of a kingdom. Players go on to build mighty empires, manage resources, and build armies to conquer their enemies, similar like in 8Realms.
We are in the process of allowing players to transfer their account to War of Legends and will have this completed before the 1st July when 8Realms will go offline. More details of how this will work to be announced shortly. Once again thank you sincerely for your support, we hope to see you all in War of Legends soon."
Servers remain closed to this day.