Before Dragon’s Crown and its online beat ’em up mayhem, there was Grand Knights History. GKH was a PSP RPG by Vanillaware that was rather online heavy with players choosing a kingdom to align with and going online to face other players and their kingdoms. Two years after release, publisher Marvelous Entertainment has announced that the game’s servers in Japan will be shutting down, effective October 31, 2013. The game was scheduled to be localized by XSEED (with Europe’s Rising Star Games using their translation of the game for European release). However, when Vanillaware’s time, resources, and funds were running low due to Dragon’s Crown development and UTV Ignition shenanigans, XSEED had no choice but to drop the localization. This disappointed Vanillaware fans, hurting even more so knowing that the text translation was complete and it was up to Vanillware to insert and program the English version (which is then followed up by more QA).

Out of morbid curiosity, I asked XSEED’s Hatsuu if there’s any chance of GKH being picked up again and getting released now. I pretty much expected a “no”, and that’s exactly what I got. So sorry Vanillware fans, this is one game we won’t be playing.

Grand Knights History’s Online Service Shutting Down Next Month [Siliconera]