In an unexpected, if not exactly surprising forum announcement yesterday, CCP has stated it will be permanently closing the EVE: Valkyrie forums.  Valkyrie players have been directed to follow social media instead of the previously centralized community forums.

Greetings Valkyries,

As part of our efforts to streamline the web presence and support for our titles, the Official EVE Valkyrie Forums will be discontinued tomorrow.

While these forums will no longer be around, you can still find information on EVE: Valkyrie and details on what’s going on over on our social media channels.

• EVE: Valkyrie Facebook
• EVE: Valkyrie Twitter

Be sure to keep an eye on our social media feeds for information on EVE Valkyrie going forward!

Valkyrie players are almost universally critical of the announcement, which came late shortly after 3 PM UTC on Monday. The community sunset cannot be considered surprising after CCP’s announcement late last year that it would be withdrawing from the virtual reality industry entirely, and the subsequent transition of the VR only Valkyrie title into the VR-optional Valkyrie – Warzone.

EVE: Valkyrie launched in 2016 as a flagship game for the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR platforms, and was widely commended for being a best-in-class virtual reality experience, with a visceral “in the cockpit” feel that few games could match. Despite its success, however, CCP announced late last October that it would be withdrawing from the VR industry, instead choosing to focus on mobile projects and PC games. As CCP moves away from supporting the Valkyrie game itself, it follows that it would start to mothball the community.

Still, the extremely short 24-hour notice seems abrupt, and many of the forum’s active community have posted that they feel slighted by the decision. Some posters have expressed frustration at CCP’s failure to recognize the community’s activity and lack of advanced notice on the decision, while others instead focused their anger on CCP’s failure to support what they consider an excellent game which failed to reach its potential due to lack of developer support and focus.

“[It’s] a statement of intent” writes Vigstanley, a long-time Valkyrie forum poster, in a reply to the announcement, “[c]lose the forum down , before we pull the plug – so there’s no come back from the guys who have given the game 12 months + of their time .  It’s a complete disgrace how this fantastic game has been ruined by poor decisions and even.poorer marketing and promotion .” (sic).

Not everyone has chosen to focus entirely on the negative, however, with some players taking the opportunity to praise the community for its helpful atmosphere and for the good times that were had working together to improve the game. Writes superkev, a Valkyrie forums poster since 2016,

I do think it’s a bit  for CCP to shut things down without even a word of acknowledgement of thanks to the amazing people who comprise EVE: Valkyrie’s incredibly supportive community.

So I want to thank all the pilots who have made this forum lively and fun. Thank you to everyone who took the time pitching in their ideas to try to make the game better. Thanks for all the dumb jokes and banter. Thanks for all the props that were shared among so many.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

It is yet to be seen whether CCP will delete the forums or make them inaccessible, or whether it will instead just put them into archive mode. Either way, Valkyrie community members will have to look to CCP’s social media channels for any further official communications.