Marvel Heroes is officially coming to an end. The free-to-play Diablo-like Action RPG originally designed by David Brevik will be playable until the end of this year, as announced on the official website.

　　We’re sad to inform our players and our entire family that Marvel Heroes Omega will be shutting down.

　　The Marvel Heroes servers will stay on until Dec 31, 2017, and we’ll be removing real money purchases as soon as possible. Players will be able to play the game entirely for free once this sunset period commences. We will share the exact date things go completely free as soon as we can.

　　We’ve had the privilege of entertaining and collaborating with our players for over four years. We’re extremely humbled by that privilege and wanted to get this message out: Thank you. Thank you to our players, our tireless employees, and everyone involved in the life of Marvel Heroes.

　　For their part, Disney provided the following statement to the press:

　　We regret to inform our fans that we have ended our relationship with Gazillion Entertainment, and that the Marvel Heroes games will be shut down. We would like to sincerely thank the players who joined the community, and will provide any further updates as they become available.

　　Now the question is whether Disney and Marvel already have a new project in the works designed to fill that void in the online games genre. Back in July 2005, Marvel had partnered with Microsoft to create MMORPGs based on the renown comic book world, but nothing ever came to fruition from that deal.

　　Now, however, Marvel Games is on an all-out offensive with heavy-hitters like Insomniac's Spider-Man and the upcoming Avengers project in development at Crystal Dynamics. It's hard to imagine they'll leave such an important genre uncovered for long.