In Brief:
- MetaKing Studios’ BLOCKLORDS (official site) account, now posting as BLOCKLORE, said the studio is closing the medieval strategy MMO and rebranding.
- The replacement is “a node-based canvas for AI generation” covering concept art, character consistency, video and editing in a single workspace.
- BLOCKLORDS shipped on Steam on March 31, 2026, after more than seven years in development and a $15 million raise. Its LRDS token now carries a market cap of roughly $1.15 million.
BLOCKLORDS is shutting down. The game’s official account, which now carries the name BLOCKLORE, announced the closure in a post on X and said the studio is pivoting to an AI generation tool.
“BLOCKLORDS is now BLOCKLORE,” the post said. “We are closing the game. But don’t worry, we’re launching something even bigger.”
Huge news, folks:
BLOCKLORDS is now BLOCKLORE.
We are closing the game. But don't worry, we're launching something even bigger:
What we built instead is a node-based canvas for AI generation. Concept art, character consistency, video, editing, all connected in ONE workspace.@BLOCKLOREView on X ↗
The replacement product, per the same post: “What we built instead is a node-based canvas for AI generation. Concept art, character consistency, video, editing, all connected in ONE workspace.”
The post carried no shutdown date. It said nothing about when servers go dark, what happens to player-owned assets, or what the studio intends to do with LRDS. There was no pricing, launch window or waitlist for the canvas product either.
Four months after the Steam launch
BLOCKLORDS reached Steam on March 31, 2026, published and developed by MetaKing Studios. It’s also listed on the Epic Games Store.
Reception was poor. Steam reviews sit at “Mostly Negative,” with 35% of 65 user reviews positive.
As recently as this year the studio was still shipping fixes and promising more. Developers acknowledged that reordering battle squads wasn’t as convenient as it should be and said a large update was planned.
The token was already thin
LRDS trades at a market cap of about $1.15 million, ranked #2728 on CoinGecko, with roughly 54 million tokens circulating against a 100 million maximum supply. The project wiki still describes a 10-year release schedule and long vesting cycles.
Exchanges had begun stepping back before the announcement. Coinsavi said it would delist LRDS along with MAIGA, TRN, PLU and DATA, halting withdrawals at 8:00 UTC on July 20, 2026.
The AI turn started in 2024
MetaKing didn’t arrive at AI generation last week. The studio introduced an AI agent called Elisa Revard in late 2024, then published an AI roadmap in February 2025 under the banner “Age of Intelligent Heroes.”
That plan called for players to build their own in-game agents to handle trading and farm management, plus autonomous AI heroes and generals in a battle mode called Battleborne. Agent activity was to be recorded on Lordchain, a Base L3. The studio ran a separate site, blocklords.ai, for the agent work.
MetaKing also confirmed it was using AI-assisted tools for some 2D artwork in the game’s narrative sections, with the dev team reviewing and refining the output.
What’s being closed
BLOCKLORDS had been in development since 2018. MetaKing grew to more than 100 people across 20 countries and pitched the game as a grand strategy MMO in the mold of Age of Empires or Crusader Kings, with players starting from different social backgrounds and building fortunes through war or taxation. A dynastic system passed traits from one generation to the next.
The studio raised $15 million from Makers Fund and BITKRAFT Ventures, with Delphi Digital, Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, WW Ventures, Spartan Group and Huobi Ventures also participating. Polygon Labs supplied the scaling infrastructure behind the player economy under a partnership announced during development.
Marketing leaned on outside names. UFC champion Michael “The Count” Bisping fronted an exclusive character commanding 1,500 Bisping Warriors.
Early access pre-registration let sign-ups claim a hero at no cost. The studio’s own framing at the time called BLOCKLORDS the first web3 MMO.
Sixty-five people have reviewed it on Steam since March.