The news arrived today on the All Points Bulletin forums from the game’s community rep Ben Batemen, the game is shutting down. While Realtime Worlds made an impact with Crackdown and there was a lot of hope surrounding the GTAA-style MMO during its development, the post-launch picture has been pretty bleak.

APB launched to mostly negative reviews. While the developers claim the game has a player base of 130,000 users and Realtime Worlds hoped to find a buyer, the end has come to this game quickly. APB suffered from a number fo bugs at launch that were never fully addressed and also suffered from some press backlash when the developer tried to enact a review embargo to keep word of the game’s state out to players right prior to launch.

Realtime Worlds itself went into administration a few weeks ago, so this is not an end that was unforseen but Bateman posted the following statement on the games’ forums:

“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 (apb gold)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.”