The official website of Face of Mankind: Rebirth was recently updated with a message concerning Duplex System’s decision to cancel the game due to financial issues. The original sci-fi MMO was first released back in early 2005, where thousands of players participated in a persistent universe taking place in a dystopian future rife with political tension.

Later that same year, a German cellphone company called Ojom agreed to publish the game, which took the game’s design principles in a new direction unfavored by the die-hard community and introduced a monthly subscription. The service ran for approximately two years until Ojom pulled the plug. Duplex Systems then had plans to continue the development of the game while changing its name to Rebirth.

Mark Dieckmann has since wrote a follow-up explanation from a more personal standpoint that was posted in the unofficial forums:

Dear Community,

My announcement is out for a few hours now and it spread around as quickly as I expected it to.
Trust me, this is not only disappointing or sad for you. With FoM being my “baby” for 7 years now, it was more than difficult to bury it. Bury it in peace and with hope, though. There were a few regrets, many mistakes and tons of problems out of reach. Besides everything, I look at FoM as one of the best things that could happen and it still pulls up many melancholic emotions.

But it’s time to move on. It’s time to wrap it up and close it down while we still have some dignity left. So, I’m calling for you now. Let’s collect all the best FoM movies and resources whatsoever and put everything linked together in a thread. It is time to remember what made FoM so special. And let’s not forget it. I certainly won’t, and you can be sure that many of my original visions will be part of Nanoverse Online. While in a totally different non-human setting, the basic concept of an MMORPG with a substantial amount of freedom still survived. I’m confident that you will love the concept as much as I do.

But why do I have time for Nanoverse and not for FoM? As I said in my announcement, some parts of my statement you will understand, others you won’t. For you this may not make any sense, while for us it’s so clear. FoM is a very resource demanding game and would always be. As a very small development studio, creating new content for that game is not just challenging, it’s always a super-enterprise-effort that not only requires lots of private funding but personal strength as well.

Cancelling FoM does not make its resources free of copyrights. I cannot open any resources for legal reasons. We have always been very hard on copyright infringements and this won’t change.
We are not bancrupt and lawyers surely appreciate the nice bonuses coming with such easy cases. Plus, some resource rights remain with Ojom, who are certainly not easy on any breach at all, which is completely understandable since model and texture resources cost a lot of money.
I can’t release the source code as well. We have licensed technologies, which were fully integrated and can’t be separated.

That’s why I decided to go the rather unusual step of doing a completely new game instead of revamping an existing one. In Nanoverse Online we will be able to create new content much easier and we will be much less dependent on a big team or outsourcing. In the end, this will be better for the game and you.

Please understand that we don’t want to release any details on the game just yet. The concept is very unique and we want to make everything right this time, well… as much as we can. A part of this is a new community and news approach. And, to completely bring down your hopes and expectations, you probably shouldn’t expect any detailed news before we have reached an almost beta-like state of the game or at least until we have something significant to show.

I say cheers to the good old times and to the even more promising future!

Although Duplex Systems currently has no consideration to redistribute FoM’s intellectual property, they have launched another website for Nanoverse Online, a new separate MMO title currently in the works.

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