State of Decay developer Undead Labs has pulled the plug on free-to-play Early Access monster battler Moonrise due to a lack of interest.

Moonrise has been available on PC via Early Access for three months, and also on iOS in some countries.

“The free-to-play model, and the mobile market, are new territory for Undead Labs, so we’ve been paying close attention to these numbers to make sure we’re making a game people are excited to play, and also a game that we can operate profitably and sustainably with the level of support you expect,” said Undead Labs founder Jeff Strain.

“What we’ve found is that while some people really love Moonrise, there were unfortunately many more people who played the game and then moved on after a few days.

“For a standalone, offline game that might be fine; but for an online game with significant server hosting costs and an expectation for ongoing development and new content, it can mean a game that not only doesn’t pay for its development costs, but might even cost money to operate,” he added.

“As you can imagine, that’s not something that makes sense for an independent studio like Undead Labs, nor for that matter would it be a good business decision even for a large publisher.

As such, Moonrise servers will be taken offline at the end of this year.

In the next few days, updates will add new Solari, wildlands, dungeons, and clothing shops to the game, and Undead said it is generally making the game play faster and easier.

All players will get a free Sunset Pack containing 2,000 gems, 10,000 gold, two Solari Boosters, and a bunch of essences as well.

“There are some fantastic elements to the game that we’re extremely proud of, and those might find their way into a future game someday, but for now we’re going to make some changes to the game that make it a blast to play for our existing players,” said Strain.

“I want to personally thank every one of you who played Moonrise, and in particular those of you jumped in on our Steam and UL player forums and shared your feedback with us — both the praise, which makes us giddy like little kids, and also the criticism, which makes us learn and get better at our jobs. Our future games will benefit tremendously from your feedback and support.”