Zombies win: Dead Island: Epidemic is shutting down in October

Here's one more proof that the MOBA genre is too crowded and that even potentially good games can't find their space – Dead Island: Epidemic, the fun zombie MOBA (or ZOMBA, as the developers called it) is shutting down October 15, 2015. This isn't the first interesting MOBA shutting down prematurely, as you'll probably remember that EA's Dawngate suffered the same fate less than a year ago.

Dead Island: Epidemic was still in open beta and tried some new tricks to shake the MOBA genre, including three team battles with waves of AI-controlled zombies thrown in the mix, as well as having bosses that required the teams to cooperate. It was more fun than it had any right to be and deserved a better fate. Steam user reviews also pointed to “very positive”, so this was clearly one of the best MOBAs around.

No specific reason was given for the decision, but the Stunlock Studios team is offering “a very large discount on all characters” until the game finally bites the dust on October 15. Here is our Dead Island: Epidemic first look from over a year ago, if you want to see how the game was shaping up to be.