The browser-based fantasy MMO, City of Steam has been purchased back by Mechanist Games. The company clarified that this acquisition only concerns the English version of the game and explained what made them purchase back City of Steam from R2 Games:

The publishing and operation rights and responsibilities for English City of Steam are now back in the hands of the game’s developer, Mechanist, us! We will be self-publishing the global English versions of the game from now on. Other language versions of the game will continue service unaffected. (…) Many factors contributed to our decision to purchase back the publishing rights. In their recent statement, R2 Games made it clear they had a “chronic lack of players” and this was a major factor in our decision.

City of Steam’s R2 Games servers will shut down, however the game will keep living on with the new owner and new changes. All the data will be transferred to the new servers and returning players will be awarded with honorable prizes “based on the specs of their old characters.” Mechanist Games announced that the 1.X version won’t be published again, it will be replaced by the 2.X version entitled as Arkadia. Finally, the company revealed its current plans for City of Steam’s new release:

Mechanist is not a massive publisher, so our only game needs to sustain long-term development and suit browser-gaming demographics better in order to keep alive. Being a browser game with an optional downloadable micro-client, it is neither comparable to a client-install MMO nor a social platform browser game in that sense.