On Saturday, July 24, 2021, the long-running and highly popular Dark Age of Camelot freeshard Phoenix was announced to be closing by the end of August. In a Phoenix forum post titled "The Sky Is Really Falling This Time", gruenesschaf, one of the creators behind the freeshard, explained the reasoning behind the decision and the remaining timeline for the server. Eventually, gruenesschaf explained in a rather fatalistic fashion, every online game–freeshard or not–reaches a point after the hype