Camelot Unchained, the MMORPG fantasy game we first heard about in December of 2012, a game that went into a very successful Kickstarter in 2013 and raising $2.2 million, with another $2 million from developer Mark Jacobs and a custom in-house engine said to support 500 person battles with a minimum of 30 FPS, was the obvious next game for gamers who wanted epic “Lord of the Rings” style battles. It was supposed to be the game that would bring player vs player battles to new heights if we just waited for it, and wait we did. We waited, and waited, and we kept waiting, and eventually it got to the point where most gamers, including the backers, just accepted that the fate of CU was that it was never going to release and it just faded away.
City State Entertainment, now rebranded as Unchained Entertainment, went through its highs, went through its lows, and while Unchained Engine grew in capability, supposedly being able to deliver large-scale, real-time battles between players (1000 of them at a time) money dried up and then CSE was in a difficult position. Taking on new investors and heading in a new direction. The new infusion of money from investors wasn’t to bring Camelot Unchained to a finished state, but instead to work on a different product called Final Stand Ragnarok. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a developer take a turn into a different product before getting to the release of their previously presented project. Intrepid Studios while developing the MMORPG Ashes of Creation spun off a Battle Royale titled Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse which was both a game in its own right but also a testing environment for the action part of the MMORPG’s hybrid combat. Soulbound Studios developer Jeromy “Capsian” Walsh is now working on Kingdoms of Elyria which should, in some way yet not fully understood, help with the development of Chronicles of Elyria.
Unchained Entertainment officially launched its prequel Final Stand Ragnarok on 14 March 2023, with a resounding 3 players in a 24-hour peak as of the time of this writing, with the high peak of 37 players in the last month seemingly on 13 March while the game was still in testing. It is entirely possible that the steam tracking is incomplete as Steamchart is returning an error on this game, while SteamDB is reflecting player date up to the minute.
Both MMORPG and MassivelyOP are reporting that Camelot Unchained is expected to release in 2025. The big question now is do you Believe Unchained Entertainment? After over a decade in development, after 9 years of delays, do you believe in the next two years Unchained Entertainment can bring to launch a game that was anticipated nearly a decade ago? Can CU and its promises of 1k+ player battles overcome other, newer, fresher looking games using new ideas and not relying on a faction vs faction warfare system? Or are players looking for a more open sandbox style of persistent worlds, with conflict being player generated with guild vs guild fights as opposed to more formal organized faction teams?
Given that Archeage 2 is expected in 2026 (and maybe earlier if XL Games can finish the design changes talked about here: https://youtu.be/v2BkhbmQf8Y, Ashes of Creation will be in Alpha 2 at that point (scheduled for Q3 of 2024) possibly Beta, and any countless number of games that are in various stages of development, can Camelot Unchained find a cadre of players that can make it relevant? Or is the window for its relevance already closed?
What do you think? Leave a comment below!