New MMORPG was buried in 2020 before the release – should now appear in 2024

On By Garmin Philip

Chronicles of Elyria wanted to be a special MMORPG in which your character can age and then die. But in 2020 almost all employees were laid off and everything looked like the game had died. But in a new developer update, the release of the game for 2024 has now been announced.

What kind of game is this? Chronicles of Elyria was a very ambitious sandbox MMORPG in which you should create your own dynasty:

  • The game world consisted of many, sometimes huge, kingdoms
  • Your character should be able to rule over such a kingdom
  • At some point, however, the aging process should cause the character to die. You should then be able to play your son or daughter, so to speak, who inherited traits from the previous character.
  • There should be a lot of freedom. Away from kingdoms, you should be able to live as a trader, craftsman or adventurer
  • Role play was considered particularly important
  • Housing, crafting and PvP should also be included
Chronicles of Elyria Alter
The characters in the MMORPG should age. A feature that got Chronicles of Elyria a lot of attention.

How did the development go? Chronicles of Elyria raised 1.14 million euros through Kickstarter in 2016. The first shown content from Chronicles of Elyria actually looked really good in the videos.

But the development took a long time and reached a point where the basic systems were only presented in a very simple graphic. However, this graphic met with criticism and gamers complained about the setbacks.

There was also criticism for many events that had to do with real money, as well as an advent calendar with in-game items that cost a proud $ 95. All of these things existed before the MMORPG even reached alpha status.

Then in March 2020 there was a big setback. All employees at Soulbound Studios, the company behind Chronicles of Elyria, have been laid off and development should not continue. Because despite the many crowdfunding campaigns and innovative ideas, no large investor or publisher could be found.

Everything looked like the MMORPG was buried with it.

Walsh wanted to turn the MMORPG into a strategy game, but should now appear in 2024

What happened next? After the layoffs, many players asked for their money back for investing in Chronicles of Elyria. They even threatened to file a lawsuit. Thereupon the boss of Soulbound Studios announced that he would continue to work on the game and would like to finish it with the help of voluntary and unpaid helpers.

A little later he announced that a new game would appear before the release of Chronicles of Elyria: Kingdoms of Elyria.

This in turn becomes a strategy game in which you build and manage a settlement. Walsh wanted to use the assets and previously programmed content of Chronicles of Elyria for this, because the building of kingdoms has always been an essential content there.

What will happen to the MMORPG now? In a new “State of Elyria” from January 1, 2022 it is said that work will continue on the MMORPG (via ChroniclesOfElyria).

According to this article, Chronicles of Elyria should benefit from the strategy game and then be implemented in a timely manner. Walsh’s official plan is as follows:

  • Kingdoms of Elyria (KoE) should appear in a basic version as early as late summer 2022
  • An expansion and an online function for the strategy game are planned for 2023
  • In addition, Chronicles of Elyria is scheduled to celebrate its release at the end of 2024

However, it is unclear how many people are currently working on the game and how far the MMORPG has developed at all. The last gameplay from 2020 – when there were still many employees – wowed very few viewers:

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There has also been a lot of criticism for the fact that updates from Walsh are rarely reported. The last blog entry before the “New Year’s Address” was in June 2021, almost 7 months ago.

According to Walsh, this is due to the fact that alpha tests for Kingdoms of Elyria are currently in progress and the backers are kept up to date via newsletters and forum entries. There should be a more intensive exchange with users who have paid for the game in advance.

What do you think of Chronicles of Elyria? Would you give the MMORPG another chance or did the whole process of development put you off? Feel free to write it in the comments.

We have summarized here why crowdfunding games are fascinating and frustrating for so many players:

Why we are so frustrated by crowdfunding new MMOs like Star Citizen

Reference-mein-mmo.de