It was real. I was part of the beta almost 6 years ago. I think officially, the original developer went bankrupt and sold the IP and game engine to a Japanese developer. I remember how shocked I was when all the character models got anime makeovers. And then the project died. As far as I know, nothing new has come of it.

Here's a look at that "makeover"

http://s420.photobucket.com/user/co.....ide12.jpg.html