The MMORPG Chronicles of Elyria excited fans with the idea that their characters could rule large kingdoms and even age. Through Kickstarter and crowdfunding, a lot of money was raised. However, the game is now dead, and we summarize the story once again.
What made the game so interesting? On June 1, 2016, Chronicles of Elyria launched a campaign on Kickstarter. The goal was to raise $900,000 to develop a prototype of the MMORPG. Within 30 days, fans donated more than $1.36 million because they were so fascinated by the idea.
It was supposed to be the first MMORPG where your character would age and eventually even die. This was intended to take about a year in real life, with each death reducing life expectancy by a few days. To preserve some of the progress and maintain the kingdom, players were supposed to have an heir.
The game promised limited resources, non-repeatable quests, and a fully destructible environment. The character would also never go offline and could simply leave the world. Those who ventured into the wilderness could be killed by others. In cities, however, one was safe, and with the help of AI, the character was supposed to behave naturally and interact with NPCs.
The combat system promised a lot of action – with dodges, blocking, and a stamina system that would prevent spamming skills. The general motto was: Skill is more important than equipment.
What was promised back then and what it was supposed to look like can be seen in this 2016 video:
The list of innovations was long and sounded exciting. But a playable version was never released. An engine change and many problems finding investors and publishers were said to be the issues.
According to the official website, the game raised over $7.9 million in crowdfunding.
Many updates at the beginning, but there were problems with the engine
How did the development go? At the beginning, there was a feeling that the head Jeromy Walsh and his team had a clear idea of their MMORPG. There were regular blog posts with new information and even smaller videos.
Walsh also raved about SpatialOS, a wonder technology that was supposed to allow for the creation of huge worlds with simple means. The company behind it was worth over $2 billion at one point. Some MMOs relied on the engine, but none had real success. In the meantime, the developer Improbable no longer relies on it and is instead focusing on the Metaverse.
For Chronicles of Elyria, this meant an engine change in January 2018 – away from SpatialOS to the Soulborn Engine, which they developed themselves. However, this took time. The first alpha was actually supposed to start just a few months later, allowing Kickstarter backers to participate.
Here you can find the few official screenshots that existed of the game:
The date for Alpha 1 was therefore not met. Otherwise, support for the game began to dwindle.
Although they announced during the Kickstarter campaign that they wanted to raise more money through crowdfunding on their own website afterwards, the amounts requested became increasingly absurd.
Some users paid thousands of euros for kingdoms in a game that had not yet been released. A sad highlight was the advent calendar for $95 in December 2019, which contained small in-game goodies. These have not been redeemable to this day.
A gameplay video brings everything crashing down
What happened in 2020? In the following months, there were no major updates. By then, Chronicles of Elyria was already two years behind the actual schedule.
On March 6, 2020, gameplay from the pre-alpha was shown out of nowhere. And from then on, things went downhill. The content shown had nothing to do with the original graphics and the promised gameplay.
What was seen was a character running through a very simply designed world. One could even play it briefly – if they had spent a lot of money beforehand.
- Some comments mocked: It could be developed within a few days or weeks. Why did it take almost four years?
- Another user wrote: “I thought this was supposed to be an MMORPG? It reminds me more of Donkey Kong 64 on the Nintendo 64.”
For many, it was now clear: Chronicles of Elyria is a scam and will never appear as originally promised.
Here you can watch the video:
The MMORPG dies… or does it not?
When was the game discontinued? On March 26, 2020, about 20 days after the video, head Jeromy Walsh announced that the studio had run out of money. The entire development team was laid off, and Chronicles of Elyria would not be released anymore.
This made many former fans so angry that they directly filed a lawsuit against Soulbound Studios, but also against the payment provider Xsolla. They wanted their money back.
A few days later, Walsh spoke out again and explained that no publisher could be found for the ambitious MMORPG. He himself would finish the project with volunteer staff.
Later it was said that they were working on a strategy game for the time being. Kingdoms of Elyria would be easier to implement and could use a lot of the resources originally allocated to the MMORPG. Through this, they wanted to finance the studio and eventually release Chronicles of Elyria.
Jeromy Walsh is, however, not the only head to have sunk an MMORPG:
However, many gamers speculated that Walsh wanted to dodge the lawsuit, as work was still being done on the MMORPG – albeit very indirectly.
Where did the money go? In 2023, Jeromy Walsh explained in a blog post where the revenues from crowdfunding from 2017 to 2019 went. He excluded the years 2015 and 2016 because the studio had very few employees then, and from 2020 on, he had to significantly reduce the number of employees and also incurred court costs, which he also excluded.
A significant portion went towards employee salaries. Here alone, $3.5 million is recorded. With 17 employees, that averages to a salary of $68,000 per person per year. He himself paid himself $96,000 and was usually, though not always, the highest-paid person in the studio.
An intact website and regular updates, although there is no progress
Where does the studio stand today? Soulbound Studios and the website for Chronicles of Elyria still exist today. There, you can still read about the vision of the “next-gen MMORPG,” even though no work is currently being done on it.
Walsh still posts a monthly update about the status of the strategy game in the accompanying blog. However, according to a new interview from October 2023, the game will not have multiplayer for the time being. This does not fit with the original vision that someday Chronicles of Elyria will be worked on again.
The players’ lawsuit was dismissed by the court, by the way.
Jeromy Walsh is, however, not the only head to have sunk an MMORPG:
