Monte Cristo have decided to call time on the portion of their city building sim Cities XL after only three months.The online servers will cease to operate on March 8th and it will be possible to register for the online components from the 1st of February.

A representative from Monte Cristo told Belgian gaming site 9 Lives: "Three months after the launch of Cities XL, we admit that the enrolment is lower than we had hoped. There are simply not enough players registered to make the servers commercially viable. That's why we decided to end the Planet Offer from March 8, 2010."

This is the second to close its servers this year, after announced that they would be shutting down their and servers for Phantasy Star Universe.

By Ewan Aiton