Avalanche Studios has suspended development of AionGuard, their planned fantasy-themed open-world adventure game, reports Develop. The game was never formally announced, but it was revealed early last year when we learned it had already been in development for two years. AionGuard was described by Avalanche at the time as offering strategic warfare on a grand scale with thousand-unit armies, featuring elite AionGuard units described as a mashup of "WWI dogfighter pilots, Samurai and medieval knights." Avalanche CEO Christofer Sundberg explains the game's shelving to Develop: "Aionguard it… it took a strange direction. We attached a licence to it and changed the whole game. We’ll continue to talk to publishers about it and hopefully one day we’ll work on it again." As for why, apparently Avalanche didn't need a mountain to fall on them to realize that a tough economy might not be time to take risks on a new IP, as Sundberg implies their next project will be an established property: "What happened I think with Aionguard is that it wasn’t the time for a new IP."