The team behind Camelot Unchained talks about the challenges of the small team and possible alpha and beta tests.
Camelot Unchained is meant to be the spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot. The PvP MMORPG came in first in our survey on the most anticipated MMORPGs of 2017, but a beta is still a long way off. It has been announced multiple times and postponed several times. Most recently, summer 2016 was mentioned – looking out of the window, it’s clear: that was quite a while ago. There has been no sign of the beta so far.
As the project lead Mark Jacobs says, clearer answers about a release date will come once a handful of key systems are fully active and functioning. The team has often suffered from a lack of personnel in the past, also because they developed “off the beaten path.” Camelot Unchained is situated on the East Coast of the USA in Virginia, while most potential employees are located on the West Coast. This makes recruitment difficult.
In a comment on the site Massivelyop, where Jacobs often comments, he says: “If everything goes smoothly, you can expect alpha and beta tests on an upcoming weekend.”
Alpha and beta on one of the upcoming weekends – if everything goes smoothly
Jacobs knows why this is taking so long: “Our programming team has only just become double digits. A game like ours would be difficult anyway.
At the same time, developing an engine is, in the eyes of many of our industry colleagues, like a ride on a crazy train. As far as we are concerned: We are on this crazy train and it’s picking up speed. We can already see the next stations!“
If you want to see how this looks in practice: There is an insane amount of video material on the development of Camelot Unchained on their YouTube channel.
For more information about Camelot Unchained, visit our news page. We especially recommend the posts about the classes.
