Ben Aksoy prototype Ace of Spades was originally developed by Ben Aksoy. The first of version of the game, Beta 0.1, was released on 4 April 2011, and was available for
Microsoft Windows. This version of the game played as a 16-versus-16 team-based
first-person shooter with a
capture the flag game mode, in which players were to obtain the opposing team's intelligence briefcase and return it to the own team's base. The gunplay itself was compared to that of
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45.
Ace of Spades was received well, despite its early and unfinished state, and was listed amongst
Kotaku "Best Indie Games of 2011" list and
PC Gamer April 2011 "Best Free PC Games" list. As of November 2012, the beta of
Ace of Spades had been installed 2.5 million times and had roughly 550,000
monthly active users.
Jagex version Around 2012,
Ace of Spades was acquired by British developer
Jagex, which had previously started creating a new version of the game in mid-2011. He continued working on the game from Jagex' offices until late 2012, when his laptop was physically damaged by one of the company's
system administrators. The remade
Ace of Spades was announced by Jagex on 1 November 2012, with a tentative release date set for the following month. The game was to be released for Microsoft Windows via the
Steam digital distribution platform. On 5 December 2012, the release date was formalised to 12 December. Pre-registrations for the game were launched alongside, and by 11 December, one day before the release, Jagex reported that 500,000 users had pre-registered for the game.
Ace of Spades launch trailer, released alongside the game itself, highlighted the characteristics of the game's new characters. In reference to the game's title, the trailer also featured
Motörhead's eponymous 1980 song, "
Ace of Spades". Unlike previous games released by Jagex, such as
RuneScape,
Ace of Spades was not released in a
free-to-play model and was instead provided as a one-off purchase costing , described as a "small one-off fee". Mark Gerhard,
chief executive officer of Jagex at the time, explained that this was "what's right for the game". Shortly following the release, on 21 December,
Ace of Spades was updated with free
downloadable content (DLC) containing four new maps, a new weapon and the reintroduction of the capture the flag game mode. On 24 January 2013, Jagex released, alongside other new content, the "Classic Mode" that aimed to play similarly to the 2011 prototype of the game. On
Valentine's Day on 14 February 2013, the game received its first paid DLC package, named ''St. Valentine's Day Massacre'', which introduced a new "
VIP mode" wherein teams defended one randomly chosen player of their own team while trying to defeat that of the other team's. A
port of
Ace of Spades to
OS X was released on 16 May 2013. As means of promotion, the game received a "free weekend", through which people could play the full game for a limited time, and overall offered at half-price. On 2 October 2013, the game received a native
map editor which could be used to produce maps shared through the
Steam Workshop. Alongside this update, the previously paid ''St. Valentine's Day Massacre
DLC was made available for free. To reflect the new mode, the game was rebranded as Ace of Spades: Battle Builder''.
Closure On 3 April 2018, Jagex announced that
Ace of Spades would be discontinued. The game was taken off sale immediately, while dedicated game servers were to stay online through 3 July. Considering an
open-source release, the company reviewed the game's codebase, but finally decided to retire the game. Jagex clarified on 1 March 2019 that an open-source release would pose "potential technical, legal and licensing implications", and that the game's servers would be shut down on 6 March. == Reception ==