Earthrise

Earthrise was a science-fiction massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Bulgarian studio Masthead Studios and published by Masthead in 2011. It launched for Microsoft Windows on 4 February 2011, placing its action on post-apocalyptic Earth rather than in a fantasy world. Its setting centers on Enterra, an isolated island that survived a devastating global nuclear conflict. The game’s backstory presents the conflict as the Fall, after which surviving institutions rebuilt society and competing powers sought control over the island. This premise gave the game a politically divided setting in which corporate, military, and criminal interests all had identifiable stakes.

Enterra is dominated by three principal factions: the Imperial, a militarized government; Noir, a criminal organization; and Sal Vitas, a biotechnology corporation. These groups are not merely cosmetic labels: faction affiliation shapes the political frame of the world and its conflict. Earthrise also used a skill-based character-development system instead of conventional fixed classes and character levels. Players allocated points among skills, while equipment and training affected their available capabilities. The game combined ranged weapons, melee combat, armor, crafting, resource gathering, and player-versus-player fighting. Its combat used aiming and movement rather than wholly automated attacks, a design Masthead described as “dynamic” combat.

Earthrise entered a MMO market in early 2011, but its life was brief. Masthead announced in November 2011 that it would end service for the game; the servers closed on 9 December 2011. The shutdown followed months of operation and meant the launch version no longer had a live service. Before closure, Masthead had released updates and discussed redesigning the game under the name Earthrise 2, but that proposed successor did not replace the original service at the time of its shutdown. Earthrise therefore remains associated with both an ambitious skill-focused MMO design and a notably short initial operating period.

Masthead promoted Earthrise as a sandbox MMO, a description tied to systems for player production, territorial conflict, and persistent factional competition. The game included a crafting economy in which players could gather materials and manufacture equipment, reinforcing its emphasis on player interdependence. Its setting also drew on transhuman ideas: advanced biotechnology and cloning were central to Enterra’s society and to the explanation for continued life after the Fall. Although its servers closed in 2011, the title is historically notable as Masthead Studios’ released MMORPG and as a Bulgarian-developed attempt to compete in the subscription-era online role-playing market internationally at launch.