The developer studio Gardens, founded in 2022, was able to raise 31.3 million US dollars for its first project – and that from well-known investors. This is an MMO, of which we only know a few concept drawings so far.
Who are the investors? As you can probably imagine, such huge sums are backed by no small fry. How enormous the interest of what feels like half of the gaming industry in the project is illustrated by the listing of some involved investors:
- Dreamhaven (developer studio co-founded by Mike Morhaime, the founder and former CEO of Blizzard Entertainment)
- Nate Mitchell (co-founder of Oculus)
- V Pappas (former COO of TikTok)
- Julien Merceron (CTO of Bandai Namco)
- Annie and Jeff Strain (co-creators of Guild Wars and State of Decay)
Thanks to the substantial financial boost, real gaming giants are now also part of the advisory team of the developer studio. Here you will find former Microsoft chairman John W. Thompson, former president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Jack Tretton, former president of Tencent and CEO of Take-Two, Ben Feder, and Yamauchi No.10 (Nintendo Family) among the advisors.
Who is behind Gardens? Of course, the developer studio is not a newly founded student project. The developer studio, founded in 2022, consists of a whole range of veterans who have already worked on major games. On board are, for example, Ryan Benno (Spider-Man, Ratchet & Clank, The Wolf Among Us), Rose Fale (Skyrim, Fallout 4), and Siobhan Beeman (Wing Commander, Ultima). There is no shortage of professional expertise here.
So far, nothing is known about the new MMORPG
What kind of MMORPG is being developed? Well, that is the big question. We know almost nothing about the currently nameless game from the now very wealthy studio except for a few concept drawings. Game Director Chris Bell refers to it as a “PvPvE fantasy adventure sandbox ARPG” and describes it as follows:
It is a game inspired by our favorite memories we’ve collected over the years while playing online role-playing games, MMOs, and fantasy action-adventures, memories of how our paths crossed with strangers. The game builds on multiplayer ideas and experiences from previous titles, […] while immersing players in a ruthless fantasy wilderness and shapeshifting, where cooperation is key, but betrayal is still possible.
We are incorporating innovative cooperative gameplay that rewards players who help each other, which can foster friendship and dialogue with PvP and conflicts in interesting and subversive ways. We are developing the world in which we want to play every day, a world that offers new experiences every time you play and evolves over the years.
Chris Bell
Really concrete information about the MMO itself does not emerge from this description, except: It will be a fantasy MMO focused on coop. PvP should still be possible. At the GDC, the international developer conference in 2023, there was, however, a playable prototype shown only to investors, which must have convinced them.
When could there be more information about the MMO? Therefore, there is currently no information about a release date or even a timeframe in which we might learn more about the project. Since the MMO studio is still looking for staff, you shouldn’t expect a new flood of information in 2023 or even 2024.
