The Chronicles of Elyria site has been updated with a lengthy note from Jeromy “Caspian” Walsh. While the developer post begins on a positive note about what has most recently been accomplished by developers of the MMORPG, it ends with a somber note. As of this writing, Soulbound Studios has closed its doors and all employees have been laid off. Walsh cites the extraordinary time of the world along with the inability of the studio to secure a publisher despite raising nearly $8M through KickStarter and other crowdsourcing initiatives.
“But to our great sadness…. with the failure of Settlers of Elyria, and five long months of only limited crowdfunding revenue coming in, Soulbound Studios has officially run out of money. Last night I was forced to do something I never thought I’d have to do. I closed the online store, put the SoE map back into read-only mode, and laid off all the employees…” Walsh wrote. “So, with no additional funding, the Chronicles now descend into what is often referred to in the monomyth or the Hero’s Journey as “The Abyss” or “The Ordeal.” It’s the period in a story where the protagonist reaches their lowest point and is often marked by a figurative or even literal death, allowing them to travel into the underworld. And so, for the time being, Chronicles of Elyria heads into the darkness.”
Walsh has hopes that the game can be revived at some indistinct point in the future. Until then, fans are encouraged to keep visiting the forums and the official Discord channel as well as the “hundreds of Discord servers out there with the gentry, aristocracy, and nobility role-playing and fantasizing about the world we’ve been creating” in order to keep the game alive.
The community is displeased with the decision and is asking for the game assets to be released into open source so that dedicated players can try to bring a playable version of CoE to the world.
Check out the full post and the community reaction to it on the Chronicles of Elyria official site.
Weilan
It was always a huge scam, shame people didn’t see it.