If this game reaches the public, it will put Star Citizen and its single-player element (Squadron 42) in an ugly position.

In 2002 (2001 overseas), an MMO called Dark Age of Camelot was released. A team then tried to make a spiritual successor called Camelot Unchained. They had a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 that raised a hard-earned $2.2 million, just barely breaking the minimum. That project then fell into development hell during the alpha and beta phases, and in 2020, developers City State Entertainment angered backers by announcing plans for another, unrelated online game…

The studio has since rebranded as Unchained Entertainment, and that other game, Final Stand: Ragnarok, will launch in early access in March of this year, while Camelot Unchained will launch sometime in late 2025. Their press release talks more about a proprietary engine (the Unchained Engine), and the team’s CEO, Mark Jacobs, says it’s been a dream of his for over three decades. It will allow the bigger battles seen in Lord of the Rings to be realized, and thousands of players will be able to experience them together in real time, and they will be shared with players in the near future…

Game development has picked up after money from A16Z Games, a venture capital firm founded by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, came into Unchained Entertainment’s fold. With the engine, they have ambitions to be like the Unreal Engine, but the gaming industry is dominated by that and Unity, so it won’t be easy for them to stay afloat with their own technology. As for Final Stand: Ragnarök, the press release is a bit interesting, as the company is gearing up for an early access release, even though it’s been on Steam since October 2021. (Also, the game has a whopping SIX user reviews so far, with a maximum simultaneous player count of 32. LOL?) Now it’s either coming out of early access in March, or they’re relaunching it, who knows?

No wonder Reddit doesn’t really believe that Camelot Unchained will actually be released…

Source: PCGamer, MassivelyOP, Steam, Reddit