Rumors surfaced on NeoGAF back in April about the possibility of Sigil Games being purchased by Sony. The general word on Vanguard was not so hot at the time. Actually, that's putting it mildly -- even at release it was clear that the press definitely wasn't marketing it as the "World of Warcraft killer" it had been rumored to be. Not quite a shock then, to find this blurb on F13.net today:

But I do know that at approximately 4:30PM today, Sigil employees were told to meet outside. At which point they were terminated. On the spot. By whom? Doesn't seem to have been Brad McQuaid, if it was, nobody is talking. But that doesn't seem like something he'd do. But I suppose the executioner is irrelevant since most folks secretly want it to be SOE and it wasn't. As it stands, people were told to come back tomorrow to do their paperwork and some may get hired by SOE.

I contacted SOE since I'm not in the business of burning bridges or spinning news and they had this to say:

"...an announcement is forthcoming tomorrow."

Well, at least inquiring minds won't have long to wait. A separate source in contact with one of the fired employees confirmed it as fact, so it looks like the next step is the formal statement. Looks pretty ugly for the future of Vanguard, but it seems that this is one of those projects that's had doom written all over it for some time now. I only hope Brad (Executive Producer of Vanguard) doesn't have any emo tendencies, because this episode could send him to a Death Cab concert faster than Ron Workman scrambling for the sweet, sweet bottle he calls home.