Since the first teaser trailer dropped in December 2012, the gaming community has been eagerly awaiting the release of Camelot Unchained. Now, almost twelve years later, Unchained Entertainment (formerly City State Entertainment) has finally given us a glimmer of hope, announcing that the highly anticipated MMO is 'expected' to launch late next year.
Unsurprisingly, the announcement of the expected release date has sparked a flurry of reactions on Reddit and our own forums. Some express disbelief that the game will hit the release window next year, while others are incredulous at their long wait.
For Jacobs’ part, he understands the consternation but believes his team of developers “can make that date.”
In an interview last week with MMORPG.com, Jacobs described a situation that took place behind the scenes last year about the future of Camelot Unchained, saying that he was having “conversations with certain people about CU” and its future.
“Starting about eight months ago, I was having conversations with certain people about CU and how to move forward with it,” Jacobs said in our interview.
“Or frankly, not,” he added.
Jacobs continued, saying that Unchained Entertainment had "not progressed as much with CU" as he would have liked in the past year. So, he sought alternatives to get this over the finish line, including bringing in new people.
"We had not progressed as much with CU as I would have expected over the previous year. As CEO, it was my job to put all options in front of our investors. At the same time I was doing this, I was talking to a designer that I believed could make a real difference to CU and its development. I made it clear to our investors that in my opinion, we needed to bring him and some other design-focused people onboard (as well as other disciplines of course).
"The investors agreed, and after about 8 months of conversations, visits, and emails with one of these people, he joined us, and a little while later, he brought someone else on board. Together, we have agreed on a vision for CU that in their opinion, could be delivered at the end of next year. It is not an MVP, it's not a stripped down version just so we can say that we released it. It is an RvR-centric MMORPG that our Backers have been waiting for and waiting for, and waiting for. "
However, the Unchained Entertainment CEO mentions that the release window wasn’t handed down on high from him specifically, but rather a date or window chosen by those in charge of getting the team across the finish line.
“Again, the date that I talked about was the date that the people who are in charge of getting us to that point believe that we can make,” Jacobs says. He continued, “The date did not come from me. It isn’t like I said, ‘Thou shalt be done, you know, at the end of 2025,’ because that would be nonsense. But this is a date from key people who believe we can make that date.
"And the key for me is that, A: they believe it, which is good. B: That they have been working, you don't want to say secretly because the team knows about it, but we've been working under the radar for one super important reason. That we have spent a lot of time both talking and working on CU and the time has come for us to talk less, deliver more. "
As mentioned at the top of this, one of the responses that we’ve seen since the announcement of a 2025 release window for Camelot Unchained came down is incredulity. People seem incapable of believing the release window at this point, largely thanks to CU’s long development time and shifting time scales on Alpha and Beta test releases in the past.
Jacobs understands this sentiment out there, and citing the work done over the “last number of months,” by the team behind the scenes, he hopes that it’s enough to give people who cannot believe the news of the new release window some confidence.
“If [the team] didn’t believe they could make that date, and I didn’t believe them, would I be so foolish as announce a date when I haven’t before? Or I haven’t very recently, certainly.”
Jacobs points to the process that has funded the studio to this point, though there certainly has been speculation about the studio’s finances over the years. He cites the fact that Camelot Unchained hasn’t been funded through the sale of “land” or “horses” or “castles” like other Kickstarted MMO projects have done.
Rather, he mentions he went to investors to get them to pour their money into the project rather than go back to backers.
“I’ve said this before, and I’ve said in other interviews, we never went back to our backers, to the players and say, ‘more and more and more money,’ right? We didn’t start selling horses, castles, land, or anything to try to raise more money. I did things the way I believed was right, which was to get professional investors, let them put in their money, and don’t take it from the people who have been waiting this long.”
It should be noted that you can still purchase backer packs on the Camelot Unchained website, ranging from $35 up to $475 (at least on the publicly facing “Builder’s” tier page; Slapshot on our forums notes that Founder’s packages are available at even higher prices.). This is fundamentally different from how some MMOs fund development by selling cosmetics and in-game items before the game is even complete. So, while there might not be a consistent going back to the well as other teams have done, there are still ways to get direct player investment in addition to the outside investors Unchained Entertainment has attracted.
Building For Camelot Unchained
While the major focus of the event last week was for Final Stand: Ragnarok, which launches on March 14th into early access…again, part of our conversation took us to how what the developers are building now influences Camelot Unchained.
Sadly, spin-off games are becoming more normalized during development. Chronicles of Elyria developer Jeromy Walsh is building Kingdoms of Elyria; we saw Ashes of Creation spin off a battle royale title there for a little bit as well. Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen developer Visionary Realms looked into it as well last year with its “247 extraction” mode that it pulled a month later due to backer backlash.
When Final Stand: Ragnarok was announced, there was also a backlash, with many questioning why the Camelot Unchained developer was devoting resources to something other than what was promised.
Since releasing onto Steam Early Access (though Jacobs and team are stressing that it was really a ‘First Access” early version of the game and this week’s release is really its Early Access debut), Final Stand: Ragnarok hasn’t fared well. Launching in 2021, Final Stand: Ragnarok has hit an all-time peak of just 37 players at this writing, according to SteamDB.
One constant theme we hear about these spin-off titles, though, is that they will help develop the larger game in the pipeline. Jacobs maintained this when talking about Ragnarok and its relationship to Camelot Unchained.
Citing things like the massive NPC numbers the Unchained Engine can pump out, as well as the various tests and modes that can be built with Ragnarok, Mark maintains that these will help to establish what the engine can do for Camelot Unchained itself.
“It proves we can handle large-scale battles, at least with NPCs,” Jacobs explained when talking about the engine. “And when we get to the battle royale test, or we get some crazy 100-person versus 2000-NPC test, those things are both a way of establishing that the engine can handle everything for CU.”
He also cites an upcoming maze the team is planning on building for Final Stand: Ragnarok as one of the best examples for how the engine, and Ragnarok itself will directly influence the development of Unchained. The main reason is that by building the maze content, the team is going to need to build an indoor renderer for an engine that, to this point, has only really been focused on outdoors, it seems.
“[T]he best example is the maze we’re building. So this next area that will go in is a maze, it’s an indoor renderer. And our engine was an outdoor renderer, as you can imagine, and wasn’t very focused on indoors. And so we we have to do a lot of things to it so it can become a strong, indoor renderer.”
“And, well, what’s the good news about that for CU?” He continued. “It means we don’t have to worry about it for [Camelot Unchained]. That’s done or will be done. Because that’s why I’ve always said, as much as I’ve gotten derision for it - and that’s okay, I understand it - almost everything we’re doing for Ragnarok is helping CU.”
Jacobs describes a scenario in which the team can effectively take the assets and work from Ragnarok and help the development pipeline of Camelot Unchained simply by building on what’s already there, such as building new levels, swapping assets, and more.
As far as Ragnarok itself, while I felt in my preview that it is effectively a tech demo, something to show off the engine, Mark pushes back that it’s more than that. While he concedes that it is, in part, proof of concept, it’s also meant to be a really fun game, with updates coming to build it out even more.
“While some things about it might feel like, ‘Oh, this is just a tech demo,’ the deeper you go into Ragnarok and you see the different arenas, you’ll see that part of it is proof of concept, absolutely. And the other part is we’re trying to make a really fun game. And if you go back to what we said, in early access, this wasn’t a game that was ever going around saying, ‘This is going to be the greatest looter slasher ever,’ or ‘it’s going to be the greatest co-op game ever.’ We never said that. We said it was going to be a fun, beat the snot out of the hordes of NPCs, play with your friends and hopefully you have some fun.”
Rebuilding Lines Of Communication
One thing that has made backers anxious of the last few years is the dearth of direct communication from Jacobs and the team about the exact status of Camelot Unchained. Sure, there have been email blasts and newsletters with some progress, but it’s been a while since Jacobs went live on a stream or we’ve seen public communication as to the exact state of development we’re in.
That, hopefully, should be changing.
When asked what players and backers can expect now that it seems Unchained Entertainment is doing more of a marketing push, first with Final Stand: Ragnarok, but eventually with Camelot Unchained, Jacobs was very specific:
“More communication with the backers. A lot more communication with the backers. A lot more communication with the backers.”
Methinks he wanted to emphasize something there.
Jacobs acknowledges that his communication hasn’t been the best. He promises that it’s going to get better and that he needs to communicate more.
“I know I haven’t been on a live stream in a while, and there are a lot of reasons for that. I think we need to communicate more again, and we will. That’s a promise, and I don’t make many of them, I mean absolute promises. That’s an absolute promise.”
While this doesn’t mean we’re going to immediately see a ramp-up in marketing for Camelot Unchained, in fact, Mark downright says we won’t in the short term, as he mentions that “now’s the time to shut up and get the work done.” However, hopefully, that “a lot more communication with the backers” turns into more public-facing discussions about where Camelot Unchained is at, especially as that late 2025 release window draws nearer.
Editor's Note: Late last night, we reached out to our PR contact to find out if we can get some clarification on the "People" Jacobs refers to throughout the beginning of our conversation, specifically who they are, their role within Unchained Entertainment, and more. We did hear back from our contact, stating she would contact the studio this morning to see if they would like to respond and clarify. Should Unchained Entertainment choose to elaborate on our request for clarification, we will update this piece with the information. - Bradford
[Update: 11:16am PT] - Mark responded to our request and added greater clarity as to the role the "people" he referred to were playing at the studio. We've updated this interview with those additional quotes from Jacobs. - Bradford
