Established back in March of 2008, Fantage quickly rose to fame for its adorable characters, fun mini-games and events, cool places to visit, and its friendly community. The graphics used here also appealed to many. The chibi-like avatars were fan-favorites and this comes at a time when Japanese anime is slowly gaining momentum due to epic manga and anime shows like Naruto and Pokemon.

Of course, aside from the cute visuals, another reason that had made the game really stand out from other virtual worlds back then was the fact that the characters in this game seem to “float” around the virtual worlds on cool customizable “surfboards”.

Aside from following in the footsteps of many old virtual world games like Spark City World, the game was also modelled after the popular virtual world, Club Penguin, which Disney had prompted acquired for a whopping $700 million in 2007. As such, it’s not surprising to see Fantage enjoyed the success that it did.

Just a year after its release, the game has garnered an impressive 3 million registered players. Fast-forward 5 more years and the game was sitting on a whopping 30 million. Of course, the game was released at just the right time – in the middle of the kid-focused virtual world boom – which, frankly speaking, had contributed greatly to the game’s success.

Ten years after its launch, Fantage finally announced that it will be shutting down on June 30th 2018. The developers showed their loyal players lots nice gestures, which includes giving all Fantagians free premium membership for the last month of operation. The company even organized a rave farewell party just for their players. This is very unlike the sudden shutdown of many other virtual world games, which frankly speaks volumes about how those developers treat their player base and fans.

Unlike many currently dead virtual worlds as well, Fantage apparently has a pretty large following. Due to this, many players or ex-players have decided to pitch in, by for instance, setting up a petition to help save the game. There is also a rumor that a private server (Fantage Rewritten, anyone?) being set up, much like Club Penguin and Toontown Online.

While we wait for the rewritten version of Fantage, you might want to check out some of our games like Fantage over at our Find Games Like website. Here, we use powerful algorithms (and some human intervention if needed) to filter out irrelevant games and curate the most accurate games that are similar to the one you’ve enjoyed playing. So, do drop by and take a look!