Cant say I'm surprised. The whole idea of a submarine sim online was uninspired - to put it politely - in the first place. This is no WOT, no hack'n'slash game or mindless shooter appealing to kids or frag-obsessed teens, and the community that embraces the idea of a sub sim needs something more in terms of sophistication than an online, web-browser platform can provide. I, for one, fired up SHO only once, played it for about two hours, found it arcadish and over-simplified and never returned to it again.
As always, Ubi did not listen to what the community loyal to the SH franchise was actually asking for. Instead of refining and polishing the rough gem that is SH5, bringing it up to the community's expectations, they came with an online surrogate that actually targeted everybody and nobody. This is what happens when you try to please too many people: you end up pleasing nobody at all.
Probably this will mark the official end of the SH franchise, at least with Ubi. They will instead focus on the franchises that bring easy profit, like Assassin's Creed (of which they seem to release a new instalment every 6 months or so), on console games targeting a wide audience and on dumbing down every franchise they can grab. That's what they are best at
