Tabula Rasa Surrenders the Subscription Fee a Few Weeks Early

Tabula Rasa was supposed to become free-to-play on January 10, 2009, a bit over a month before its intended shut-down date of February 28, 2009, but it seems publisher NCSoft has taken the holiday season as a cue to change their mind. Videogaming247 reports that the ill-fated MMO can be played right now, completely free of charge.

Of course, the servers will shut down on February 28, 2009, effectively eliminating anyone and everyone’s progress, so a lot of potential players may not see the point. Then again, with the recession crushing many wallets, some people might be more excited to game on the cheap. A free-to-play game from an industry icon -- lukewarm critical reception aside -- might help numb those financial open wounds...or not. If nothing else, exploring the doomed worlds of Tabula Rasa could carry some educational value. After all, what better way to avoid server-wide extinction in our massively multiplayer games than by figuring out how and why it happened in others?