Realtime Worlds just made the shocking announcement that APB has sadly met its demise.

UPDATE 3: Ben Bateman just tweeted the following today, Sept. 17, at around 9 a.m. EDT: "The RTW offices may be empty, but somehow the APB servers are still online. Time for an after party! Jump in!"

UPDATE 2: Ben Bateman has posted on his Twitter feed that the game is free-to-play until the servers shut down tonight. "People who are still here are working for free," he said. "We only found out this morning."

UPDATE: Former Realtime Worlds game developer Luke Halliwell has posted a lengthy 3-part series on "Where Realtime Worlds went wrong" on his blog. You can start with part 1 and go from there. It's an interesting read.

In a shocking turn of a events, the fledgling urban MMORPG, All Points Bulletin, has come to a close a mere three months after its initial launch. This is probably one of the fastest triple A MMORPG closures in the history of the industry, and for many fans of the game, it just seems like it's too soon for a game with as much potential as APB had. Sadly, we won't be able to see what may have come from this game, as Ben 'APBMonkey' Bateman, the Community Officer for APB, just announced on their website that while "APB has been a fantastic journey . . . that journey has come to a premature end."

Bateman follows up this painful news with some parting words from the development team over at Realtime Worlds, all of whom express deep regret at not being able to allow their MMORPG the chance to realize its full potential. The servers appear to be up for now, and the team is inviting players to take this chance to come on to say goodbye.

Goodbye, All Points Bulletin!

Here's the farewell post from the APB site in case it disappears:

APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone's best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It's been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome!

From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support.

The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye!

- Ben 'APBMonkey' Bateman (Community Officer)

"I truly wish we had the chance to continue to craft APB into the vision we had for it. It has been a long & difficult journey but ultimately rewarding to have had the chance to try something bold and different. APB holds some great memories, from the last night of the beta, to the clans and individuals who amazed us with their creativity and sense of community. I am so sorry it had to end so quickly but hopefully the good memories will stay with us all for a long time. Thanks to all the team for the years of hard work, and to the players who contributed so much." - Dave Jones

“Please spare a thought to all the thousands of brave men and women of San Paro who despite knowing the odds, still dared to cross the street. They will be sorely missed.”  - Johann van der Walt (Software Engineer: Living City)

“Thanks for sticking with us through the hard times guys, we put a huge amount of our lives into APB, but unfortunately we’re not going to get the chance to make it the game we all knew it had the potential to be. Thanks." - Rob “bobbyd” Anderberg.

"Thanks for being a creative and imaginative community, the cookies, feedback and ideas were appreciated."  – Ben ' Giefster ' Skelly

"Working on APB was rewarding, frustrating, amazing, depressing, exciting, and overall, surreal. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it, but I’ve enjoyed it all the way. I hope the players enjoyed the time they had despite the short comings, and will remember the game in a good light for what it was meant to be, not quite what it turned out to be. Now just to get started on that Xbox version..." - Jon McKellan (the guy who did the loading screens)

 “I had the great pleasure of working with some extremely talented people in both the Dundee and Boulder office, and for the longest time APB was our lives.  It is truly sad that it ended this way ... but when you aim for the stars, you sometimes fall on your face.” - Ben Abbott, Live Producer.

"Press F to apply for Jobseekers Allowance."- Ben Hall (Development QA)

"In every way APB was a dichotomy. I have witnessed the project alter from a fragile and delicate entity used to show the world the depth of our vision through to the sturdy beast we released to the public. There were the unusual errors and crashes which are to be expected but it worked. Once in the hands of our community I have never seen something elicit such a polarisation of people. It was dismissed as overhyped and broken or else taken to heart to be loved and cherished, buoyed on by a fanaticism I was proud to have played a part in bringing to the world. Although still again among our players APB brought out both the poles in human behaviour. I bore witness to raw hatred and fury, arrogance and mean spirits but I was also delighted to experience the kindest side of human nature as players came to the aid of others when in a tight spot or they created works of art with the tools provided.

In all APB was a fantastic experience with an incredible team and it is one that I will always cherish and has added to who I am. Thank you everyone involved from our excellent players to our incredible dev team."- Conor Crowley (Senior QA, System design assistant, Tech support, in-game support, Overall CS, 1 man Publishing QA team, Tea Boy, Morale Officer)

"I’m sad to see the project go. Of all the games I’ve worked on, APB was probably the one with the most potential.  I genuinely believe that given more time, we could have turned APB into the game we all wanted it to be. I’d like to thank the community for all their support, the good times I’ve had playing against them, and for the amazing (and often hilarious) user-generated content that they’ve created.

I’d also like to thank the rest of the team for all of their hard-work, and for generally being great people to work with. " -Bryan Robertson (Gameplay Programmer)