The MMORPG Oath started in 2019 on Kickstarter and had already been in development for 8 months at that time. It reached twice the planned revenue and promised an alpha in December 2019. However, since then there have been allegations of fraud and much silence from the developers. An alpha seems far away.
What kind of game is it? Oath was supposed to be a free-to-play MMORPG that focuses on hardcore content in PvE and PvP. The game is supposed to be funded through a shop with cosmetic items and has reportedly been in development since September 2018. It uses Unreal Engine 4, SpatialOS technology, and has a rather simple and colorful graphic style.
In April 2019, the indie studio with 5 developers launched a Kickstarter campaign that easily reached its planned goal of $35,000 and even nearly doubled it.
Many players showed interest in Oath because it wanted to strictly separate PvE and PvP and focus on group content.
What’s the status of the game? More than a year after the campaign started, the MMORPG is not doing well. Many fans believe it will never be released and feel deceived.
They see the reasons as the drama with the company Ocean Spark, who was tasked with creating graphics, and the silence from the developers. The last post from an employee was published on January 2, 2020, and silence has reigned in social media for even longer now.
Also, there has been no trace of the alpha promised for December 2019.
Company behind Oath struggles with fraud allegations
The allegations: Ocean Spark is an external company that was supposed to create graphics for the MMORPG Oath. However, they accused the developers in October 2019 of not being paid and subsequently took their story to the public and various YouTubers.
In their statement, Ocean Spark claimed that Ready-Up Studios, the company behind Oath, was not qualified to develop such a game. As a reason, they stated that there was:
- no direction
- no background story
- and generally no playable version of Oath even four months before the alpha release.
According to their statement, the graphic designers should have simply started designing grass on an island and then continued from there:
How did the developers respond? The developers of Oath issued a statement, showed already made payments, and told their side of the story (via Ready-Up).
According to this, Ocean Spark only bought and reused existing assets. They subsequently stopped payments, leading to the public allegations.
However, the studio made itself unpopular by filing a lawsuit against a YouTuber who made Ocean Spark’s story public. They would have preferred that their version be heard first before any damage to their reputation occurred.
Did this drama cost the development of the MMORPG?
What has happened since then? The statement was published on October 30, 2019. After that, there was much silence from the developers. Only on January 2, 2020, “Stephen,” one of the people responsible at Ready-Up Studios, spoke up via Discord.
There, he said that the alpha, which was supposed to start in December 2019, would be postponed. The reason for this is the fraud allegations which prevented the studio from attracting new employees.
However, a post with new information about the alpha should be coming “soon.” This post never appeared.
The last posts on social media and Kickstarter were from May and August 2019, respectively. Since then, there has been complete silence there.
Will Oath ever be released? In the subreddit for the MMORPG, there are now many users who assume that Oath will never be released (via reddit). They have already written off the money they invested via Kickstarter.
In between, the official website of the game was temporarily unavailable. Currently (July 27, 12:00 PM), it is functioning perfectly.
If Oath surprisingly does start with an alpha, we will inform you here on MeinMMO. Until then, you can check out the 8 most promising MMORPGs in development.
