It is just bitter: Not a month after the early access launch of Camelot Unchained on Steam, only a handful of players are left on the server. The team led by MMO veteran Mark Jacobs has been working on the spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot for 13 years.
How is the launch of Camelot Unchained on Steam going? The MMORPG from Unchained Entertainment celebrated its early access release on Steam on June 2, 2026. Although “celebrated” is the wrong word. Camelot Unchained stumbled onto Valve’s platform like a wounded deer:
- At the paid EA launch, only 521 MMO-interested players were simultaneously browsing on Steam (Source: steamdb.info).
- Less than a month later, during prime time, there are only 3. As I write this news, the server is empty. 0 players.
- The ratings on Steam reflect this: only 39 percent of the 334 reviews are positive.
What are the biggest problems?
- Graphically and gameplay-wise, Camelot Unchained seems as if it does not want to be a spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot, but to compete directly with DAoC from 2001. The MMORPG looks hopelessly outdated and plays noticeably stale.
- Camelot Unchained fully relies on the faction war between 3 realms. Everything revolves around massive battles in the open world to gain control over regions and the resources there. Therefore, CU needs a certain minimum number of active players to function at all. This number is already not being reached.
- There are no quests. If opponents for PvP are missing, you can grind mobs and farm resources. The world is empty.
- There is no introduction in any form; you are simply thrown into the world without goals or explanations. The user interface lacks many standard functions and information.
- Camelot Unchained suffers from severe performance issues despite the low player numbers. There are also crashes, bugs, choppy animations, and more.
The 2.2 million dollars could have just as well been burned
MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz explains why this is so bitter: Even though it sounds harsh: An MMORPG that has a failed launch is unfortunately nothing remarkable anymore; it is more the standard. But Camelot Unchained has a particularly bitter aftertaste for me.
After all, behind the project is Mark Jacobs, a genre veteran who made a name for himself as the lead developer of Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online among fans. And only thanks to this name, he was able to raise more than 2.2 million USD for his new MMO through the Kickstarter campaign 13 years ago.
2.2 million USD. Just think of all the things that could have been done with it. Well, not develop a large open-world MMORPG. That is clear. Thus, the team was also busy in the following years trying to raise more money for the dream of a new DAoC.
Due to the eternally long development time and the increasingly negative mood in the community, this became increasingly difficult. At one point, there was even a threat of the project’s cancellation, until a new investor was welcomed in March 2024.
Now, when I look at Camelot Unchained, I wonder: What have Mark Jacobs and his team been doing for the past 13 years? The current early access version resembles more of a pre-alpha prototype that a handful of developers have worked on for a few months to make it into a proper MMORPG in the coming years.
In direct comparison, even other MMORPG failures from recent times seem like a Quinfall in the bright light. With the daily over 1,000 players there, one could at least organize a decent battle. In the already catastrophic balance of Kickstarter MMOs, Camelot Unchained definitively takes a particularly prominent place.
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